It's really c-c-cold!

Life could be a little wonderful if I were a polar bear. It's so freakin' cold outside (still can't beat Siberia's -68C, but I think -19C is still pretty bad) and I unfortunately forgot to wear my mufflers and my hat today because I thought I was going to be late for lunch with everyone. As usual, I was the first to come. I should have waited for the next bus so I could better equip myself. Meh.

I just can't survive without soup.

Herbal Chicken Soup

This is probably the most disgusting-looking soup if you're not familiar with the concept of Chinese herbal soup. Well, you probably won't see all the ingredients used if you eat herbal soup in a restaurant.

The taste? Kinda like an acquired taste. I have the taste buds of a grandma, so I like it LOL ♥

By the way, the food at the new Korean restaurant near my university did not taste good. I don't think I'm returning to that place for lunch, considering it's quite far from my departmental building. I guess this is the side effect of being able to cook decent food at home: I refuse to eat anything that taste worse than my cooking.

Okay, got to resume doing my assignment. Will be back again after the finals! Wish me luck!

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Sleepy winter

As winter comes, I become really lazy. And I turn into a real glutton. 5 pm feels like 8 am, and the darkness just makes me feel that it's time to sleep.

Low productivity.

As I promised last time, I'd post some pictures when I was in Japan. Roaming Tokyo area in 6 days (or maybe it was 5 days, including travel time and all that) was really tiring.

The weather was great (the coldest winter in Tokyo is only about 5 degrees C!), the food was great, and of course, lots of cute things around ♥

One of my most favorite food was omurice (rice covered in omelet). I don't know why, but the omelet feels really light and fluffy, and I'm not really exaggerating but the egg kinda 'melts' in the mouth.

By the way, there is a funny (maybe more like embarrassing, but either way, it's funny) behind this omurice. I was hungry and decided to eat at Ootoya. Ootoya is a restaurant chain that serves traditional Japanese foods. I went through the menu, and somehow I couldn't pick anything until I saw omurice. I was thinking, "hey, I haven't had omurice at all", so I decided on that.

I went to the cashier to order the menu, and the guy asked me to reconfirm if this menu was the one I selected (apparently this is a customary habit in Japan - whenever you go to a store, they'll always ask you to reconfirm that you got the right stuff). He asked me if I ordered okosama omurice, and I said yes. At this point, I understood well that it's a kid's menu (okosama means kid). He didn't say anything else, or prevented me from ordering that menu, so I went ahead and paid for the omurice.

And then I sat down.

When the omurice came, the guy at the cashier (who turned out to be a server as well) told me that this menu is meant for kids under 13, this was the only time he would let me order it, and there should not be a next time.

And I can only say "sorry", and then I munched the omurice.

But really, I like kid's portion. I like kid's menu in general. They have nice plates, and the serving size is just right for me.

I wish I can return to being under 12 years old again haha! I'm such a big kid :)

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Love from Japan

It's quite late, but I went to Japan during my Thanksgiving Break. Yes, it's a short Saturday-to-Saturday break, but I think I spent my days there pretty efficiently (like, from dawn till dusk?).

During those days, I visited quite a lot of places near Tokyo. The weather is perfect (around 9-17 degrees C in general), although it rained on some days.

At first, I was still too shy to speak Japanese on the plane. My first language wasn't Japanese, by the way, and I haven't had any formal Japanese classes. Surprisingly, as I landed on Japan, words started flowing. At the very least, I could 95% understand whenever I ask for directions or buy foods. I could even ask "what's in that food" and be able to understand what the shop keeper says!

Most of the time, people started to notice that I'm not a native speaker when they asked me to take a photo for them. Instead of counting from 3, 2, 1, I started counting from 1, 2, 3. That is a definite Indonesian habit. I only realized this when people took a picture of me and they count from 3 to 1.

If I were a spy, my cover would have been blown (LOL).

In terms of food mannerism, I think I don't really have a problem. I was still a little surprised when they eat noodles while slurping really loudly. It was rather enjoyable - normally my mum would scold me if I slurp noodles because that would be considered as rude. So, yeah, it was really fun to slurp the noodles as I lift the bowl to gulp the soup. Note: you don't drink the soup with spoon. You drink it straight from the bowl.

Another interesting point is oshibori or hot towel. I'm not sure if it's only me and my family, but we only use hot towels whenever we're done with our food (normally in seafood restaurants where using hands to eat is necessary). It feels good to wipe your greasy mouth when you're done eating. But in Japanese culture, they use oshibori before they eat.

By the way, I was praised for my chopstick-wielding skills. The guy at a nabe restaurant was rather surprised to see me handle the veggies in the pot using my chopstick for some reason :)

Even though I've been eating like a crazy pig, I only gained 1 kg in total. Surprising, huh? I would have gained 3 kg if I were in US. I don't know if it was because I kept walking from morning till night every day and burn my calories, or the food there is naturally low in fats. I personally think that the food is far less greasy than US foods. I can't really say that they have small serving sizes - they're actually quite big.

However, the over usage of salt is just too scary!! They use sauces in everything, and to me, they're really too salty!!

Will post some photos soon... I'm getting really busy with finals and assignments. And to think that I'm still having problems with my sleeping schedule thanks to jet lag, I can't say I can survive the last two weeks of school pretty easily.

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Me, the picky eater and the bad essay writer

The reason why I hate baking is that it's not as flexible as cooking savory foods. Let's say, I hate sugar. But I can't bake without sugar because sugar affects the texture of the cake. I feel like I'm underestimating bakers, but I feel that cakes are just combination of sugar, fats, flour and some flavor. Of course, you add things to cakes such as baking soda, egg whites, egg yolks and all others which I may not know. One wrong move and your cake is destroyed.

I guess the biggest deciding factor why I'm not into baking is that I rarely ever say "WOW!" to any cakes I've eaten so far. They don't excite me. I mean, yeah, I like the madeleine they sell at Starbucks. I eat birthday cakes and they're fine. But they don't excite me.

The best baked things that could ever made me say "OMG I WANT MORE OF THIS!!" was a really soft and fluffy honey bread that has thin, golden, crispy layer on the outside that I ate 1 years ago. It was the most brilliant baked goods I've ever had in my life. When I ate it, my heart cried "this is what heavenly means!!".

To a certain degree, I am a picky eater. But I've lived long enough in a dorm with the kind of foods that were far from exciting. The money I had was my parents', and I don't deserve to eat out at fancy restaurant every day just because dorm food was so-so. Occasionally, I did try to find some good foods around the area, but they're never fancy foods. My parents allowed me to spend them on foods, but I felt really bad if I spent too much on them.

But then I realized how much food gets wasted every day. Picky people throw away foods they don't really like. It's not even poisonous or inedible. They just throw food away.

So many people are hungry, why are we throwing food away?

I have now become a picky eater who will only praise the really good stuffs but eats everything that I can eat. This makes me sound like a greedy cat that sweeps everything away from the table, but I just can't stand food getting wasted. Why. Why wouldn't people take leftovers home?

I think altruism can start from taking leftovers home and save them for the next meals. Like, I somehow can't stand people who talk about altruism and waste food at the same time. Sounds a little too hypocritical to me :(

See, this post is getting nowhere. But here's the message:

DON'T WASTE FOOD.


Finally, the message got across. Even though you're a picky eater, try to eat the food and don't throw away the food, you got me?


And uhh... sorry to all bakers out there. I know there are awesome bakers out there because I've had a really awesome bread before. Keep baking, and maybe someday when I eat your baked goods my heart will finally accepts them with love ♥

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HELP!

Not meant to be gory!

The initial concept was a person who gets shocked after looking at his friend getting stressed out from studying. After it's been done, the concept changed to a person who witnessed a crime scene (LOL).

I don't have any bento ideas nowadays. I've been channeling my ideas through the songs I composed. Thanks to my friend, I became familiar with VOCALOID and I finally got the software. It's surprisingly rather easy to use. I guess the hard part is to make the voice sounds like a human, and not some synthetically produced voices >.<

And it's also partially because I have gotten really busy with school work! So many things to do, and so many things I want to do!!

I think my next bento will be Noctis bento. I hope it's not that hard to make.. ♫

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Spicy Attack

I don't know why but somehow I wanted to eat something really spicy.

It's hard to find cabe rawit here, so I used dried chili peppers they normally use in kungpao chicken. I boiled about 40-50 of them, fry them in a little bit of oil and crushed garlic, and just a little bit of lemon grass. And then I added a piece of chicken thigh, cut into 3 parts.

Yum!

Oh, by the way, good news: I can take French 101 next semester! \(^ v ^)/

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Shokuyoku no Fuyu

Shokuyoku no aki - a season of hearty appetites in fall season. Well I can't say it's fall right now. It's entering winter. So I'll call my phenomenon "shokuyoku no fuyu" since I'm becoming a real glutton in the cold winter.

It's midnight and I was hungry. I ate all the freebie cereal bars at home, so I had no choice but to cook something. I made shrimp alfredo linguine for lunch, and I guess I made too much sauce. So I decided to make a gratin.

At first I didn't know what gratin was. Thanks to the power of Google, I found out that it's a dish with some grated crust on it.

So I boiled tri-color rotini, put them on a pyrex pan, poured out the left over white sauce, sprinkled the dish with TONS of grated parmesan, and baked it using a toaster oven.

I call this this les crevettes au gratin. You know what? I'm not sure if I got them right but I Google (again!!) translated shrimp and les crevettes came out. And of course, au gratin  must have mean "with gratin" or something similar to that since I saw it on many restaurant menus. I mean, there's au jus as well, so I figure that au must have similar meaning to ala. No?

In any case I'm sorry if I got the French phrase wrong. But I really think putting a French name for your Western-style dish just sounds cooler somehow. After all, we love something that sounds complicated, don't we? *wink wink*

Bon apetit!

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Revenge!!

I spent half my weekend (Saturday and Sunday) in my research lab. It was kinda stressful. On Sunday I went to lab at 1 and came back home at 7:30 pm. That was tough.

I was really hungry. I thought of dining outside. I didn't think I have enough energy to cook anymore. But as soon as I got home, I thought of cooking something fancy.

there we go, Indonesian nasi kuning.

Yellow rice

My dinner on Sunday

and my lunch on Monday

Pretty simple to make. 

Yellow Rice

Recipe:

- 2 cups long grain rice

- 4 teaspoon turmeric powder

- 1 teaspoon ground white pepper

- 1/4 teaspoon ground clove

- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

- 1 teaspoon chicken powder

- 1/2 can coconut milk

- 2 bay leaves

- 2 orange leaves

Steps:

1) Rince rice in water twice.

2) Fill the water line in the rice cooker to slightly below the line for 2 cups of rice.

3) Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well.

4) Turn on the rice cooker and wait until it cooks.

5) Serve hot.

Ayam goreng ketumbar (corriander fried chicken)
Recipe:

- 2 pieces chicken thigh, chopped into 2

- 1 tablespoon turmeric powder

- 1 teaspoon black pepper

- 2 tablespoons ground corriander seeds

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1/2 teaspoon ground clove

- 1 teaspoon lime juice

Steps:

1) Marinate chicken with the rest of the ingredients for 1 day in the fridge.

2) Heat 2 cups of oil (enough to submerge the chicken) with medium-high heat (5 out of 9)

3) Carefully put marinated chicken into hot oil. Be careful of oil splashing out.

4) Cook for ~15 minutes

5) Drain and serve when hot.

WARNINGS: I never follow the recipe, so the above ingredient measurements are just estimates!!!

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Bread Bowl

It's getting colder and colder, so I guess it's almost time for soupy meals again.

Shrimp and scallop creamy tomato bisque on bread bowl

I got the bread from Panera. Or rather, I got it from one of my food science class because we were talking about bread and cheese production and my very nice professor brought us 4 different types of bread and 3 different types of cheese. We had quite a lot of leftover so I brought this one home.

But I left it too long inside a paper bag, so the bread has gone really dry!! Yes, the air outside is getting really dry too.

I found a can of Campbell soup in my kitchen cabinet, and decided to make shrimp and scallop bisque.

Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 3 shrimps, chopped
- 3 scallops, chopped
-1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice

- 1/2 can tomato bisque (Campbell's)

- a round bread with thick 'skin'

Steps:

1) Heat olive oil on saucepan. Add minced garlic and sautee until golden brown.

2) Add shrimp, scallop, black pepper and lemon juice and cook until shrimp and scallop is not transparent.

3) Add tomato bisque. Stir and heat for 10 minutes.

4) In the meantime, cut the top part of the bread so that it's wide enough to be a bowl. Scoop out the insides of the bowl using a spoon but be careful not to dig too deep and break the bottom part of the bread.

5) Pour soup into the bread bowl. Serve hot.

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Sleeping Bento

The leaves have started to turn red, but the temperature was around 29-30C today, so it doesn't feel like Fall has come. I was talking to my friend today, and I just realized that it has been 2 months since the start of this semester!

I only have 3-4 bento photos so far. That's sad :( I had more last year...

So the theme for today is "I still want to sleep..."

I think everyone has at least experienced this before: the alarm clock rings, you try to reach it and find the snooze button, wishing for another 5 minutes of sleep... which could potentially end up with you waking up late (at least that has been my case LOL).

Recipe is self-explanatory. The beef curry was actually my dinner left over :3

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Checkered Cookies

Hello again! I'm back to surface. As you probably have known (if you know me or you follow this blog), I don't like sweet stuffs. But I can't resist cuteness attacks, so I've decided to bake checkered cookies. I was actually inspired by my friend's photo. She made black and white cookies for Valentine's day.

Before baking

After baking

It wasn't that hard to do. Basically, it was the same as shortbread cookie recipe, but with altered flavor. I got the original recipe from here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pistachio-Chocolate-Checkers/Detail.aspx

But I modified it slightly because I simply don't like cookies that are too sweet. So instead of 1 1/2 cups of sugar, I used only about 3/4 cups of sugar. I added 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract for the white one, and then about 2 teaspoons of matcha powder for the green one.

BUT!

I ran out of all-purpose flour, so I had to resort to self-rising flour. So the cookie is a little fluffy. But I guess that's okay; it's just that the cookie kinda became fat (LOL).

Anyways.

It's getting colder and colder. Everyone seems to hate the cold down here, but I prefer this than the hot, scorching sun.

I've started the "One Thank-You per Day" on Facebook, and I'm glad to hear that some of my friends thought this idea is very inspiring.

I don't go to bible studies, and I'm not as religious as probably most of the Christians down here. But what I want to do is to spread the love to the community - to spread the message that there is always something to be thankful about as you live every day. Life does not suck; at least for me, and that's what I want to believe.

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A Day to Thank

I'm planning to start this project called A Day to Thank.

Basically this is going to be my last year as an undergrad, and I don't know if I will switch univ for grad school. I can't say that my life has been all so colorful - sometimes gloominess just overshadows me. But I survived and I'm doing pretty well as a whole.

There is always someone or something to thank about :) Like the big tree near the bus stop that shelters me in the morning from the scorching sunlight, the bus schedule gadget I downloaded on my computer to check when the next bus is going to come, the very clean restroom in the library, a yummy and cheap department-operated cafetaria.. It's all there. I'll never realize all these good stuffs if I don't sit down and give some time to think about it.

So I'm going to start this project starting tomorrow onwards. I know I won't be able to do it every day but I'll try my best to post as many as possible :)

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Oven Grilled Shrimp

It wasn't what it supposed to be, but it happened that way. I wanted to grill those shrimps with spicy chili pepper dressing, they ended up herb flavored.

Oven grilled shrimp with onion and garlic spicy chili pepper dip, baby spinach salad with sesame dressing, and mushroom rice side dish.

Shrimps aren't that hard to grill. If I recall correctly I used 350F preheated oven toaster to cook the shrimps. Just keep basting the shrimps to keep it juicy and not dry :)

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Childhood Food

I used to love corned beef. It tastes really good with rice ♫

Nasi goreng corned beef

I found corned beef on County Market's shelf. I don't think I've ever seen corned beef in WalMart. I feel like County Market has a lot of 'exotic' foods not available in groceries like WalMart and Meijer. But I guess the bad thing about County Market is that it doesn't have what other groceries would normally have.

Ingredients:
1Tbsp butter
1/4 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup onion, sliced thinly into 2cm x 2 cm sizes
1/4 cup minced red bell pepper
2 eggs
4 cup cooked long grain rice
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 cup corned beef
1 green onion, chopped into 0.5 cm length

Directions:
1) Melt butter on frying pan.
2) When butter is hot (you can see it sizzling), add minced garlic and onion. Sautee until the onion is soft and slightly transparent.
3) Add red bell pepper.
4) Set aside some space on the pan, then crack the eggs.
5) Wait for 10 seconds (or until the egg is slightly hardened but not fully cooked), then stir the eggs using spatula.
6) Add cooked rice and mix well with the ingredients on the pan. Add soy sauce, white pepper, corned beef and green onion. Stir well.
7) Cook for another 2 minutes.
8) Serve.

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Gum paste!

As you all know, I have very very little experience with sweet foods, especially cakes and pies. The sweetness just... kills me. I guess I have very great sensitivity to sugar, but even then, I think US cakes are just over-sweetened.

The point is... I didn't know what fondant and gum paste were until some time early this semester. I didn't even know of the differences. All I know is that it's all sugar and ingredients that can kill a person with diabetes.

Cloud Strife's (FF7) head...?

I used yellow coloring for the hair, and orange for the face. That was my first time dealing with gel food coloring. I was surprised that I could get just the right amount of coloring for both the hair and the face. For the hair, all it took was one very quick dip into a drop of yellow gel, and for the face, it took one dot of orange using a toothpick.

Massage the gum paste with fingers greased with vegetable oil until the gum paste became smooth.

The trick is to handle everything very quickly. Once the gum paste goes dry, it will become very brittle and that's when things just go wrong.

For the hair, I rolled the gum paste to three sets of  sheet with 2mm thickness. And then I cut each sheet into oval shapes using a plastic knife. Once done, stack the three sheets on top of one another and align the hair based on your instinct (LOL).

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Sweet and Sour

You can't live only with sweet things.

Sweet and sour pork with sauteed baby spinach

Okay, I'm not trying to be sour. It just happens that when I'm sick I prefer something very flavorful. People suggesting you to eat bland, unappetizing porridge when you're sick pretty much lack empathy. When you don't have any appetite, how can you serve something so pallid to your tongue?

I had a pork curry two days ago, and that was quite a bad idea since it somehow worsen my sore throat. But at least it was appetizing.

Making sweet and sour sauce is much easier than I thought it would be.

Ingredients:
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1/4 onion, cut into thin slices of 1/2x1/2 inch
- 1/4 red bell pepper, cut into thin slices of 1/2x1/2 inch
- 1/2 cup Del Monte pineapple chunks
- 1/2 cup pineapple juice
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tsp tomato ketchup
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1/8 tsp white pepper
- 1/8 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp corn starch, dissolved in 1 Tbsp cold water

Steps:
1) Heat vegetable oil using medium heat. Add onion into the pan and sautee until it softens.
2) Add red bell pepper. Sautee until it softens.
3) Add pineapple chunks with the pineapple juice, water, tomato ketchup, black pepper, white pepper, salt and vinegar. Mix well and cook for about 5 minutes or until onion becomes transparent.
4) Add corn starch (mixed with cold water to form slurry) and stir the sauce.
5) Heat for another 2-3 minutes or until sauce thickens.
6) Serve sauce when hot.

At step 3, you can add more seasonings or water into the pan to suit your taste. You can pour this sauce over cooked chicken or fish!

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Food for the Sick

My mum hates porridge because it's a food for the sick (i.e., when you're sick, you can only eat porridge because either you have difficulty swallowing or you can't digest properly). I've been sick pretty badly since yesterday. I've taken both cough and cold medicines, took a 2 hour nap (and almost forgotten to thank my scholarship sponsor at 6 pm!!), rested my body well... but my condition was still very bad in the morning. I almost collapsed in my 9 am class to the point that I had to take a bus home and slept for another hour before I went back to school to meet my professor to discuss about my group project on milk replacements.

Long story short, I took the GRE today with high fever. I was so nervous that I forgot I had brought my sweatshirt in my bag. Sitting down continuously for 3 hours was seriously a bad idea. I was trembling in cold as I squeezed out my overheated brain.

I actually did better than the mock exams I did at home! Not to mention I was half dead. God must be so gracious today that such miracles could happen!

Anyways...

I made a light soup for myself: tofu, earwood mushroom, carrots and pork soup. Yum.

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Have a Good Semester!

I remember my days back in secondary school where my friends and classmates wrote down good luck wishes on a piece of paper and passes it along with sweets, chocolates or coffee to their friends. Ever since I went to univ, I've never given anything for anyone anymore :(

Lemon mini cupcakes with no frosting

I bought the wrappers from Hobby Lobby. Last week was actually the first time in my life entering that store even though it has been 2 years since I came to US! Unbelievable, isn't it? The moment I stepped in there I just fell in love with that store. It just reminded me of Singapore's Spot Light, a handicraft/art shop that I frequently visited on random occasion back then.

The big news is I MADE A CAKE!! Okay I'm going to be honest, I used a cake mix. I wouldn't consider this as a 'real' baking because it's almost fool-proof: the measurements can't go that wrong.

Anyways, I was really happy when people eat my food happily. I don't like sweet things, but there's no harm making sweet things and doing sweet things to people, right? :)

I hope this cake can energize everyone! Have a good semester ahead XD

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No time!!!

I don't know how many times I've said this this year but my schedule's been killing me. The credit hour limit in my university is 18; I'm taking 23. Not to mention that at least 3 of them are hard core materials. And then I'm also very involved in 2 clubs related to my major.

There is no lunch time at all. And when I got home, it's already dinner time. I had no more appetite - I just want to slam my body against my bed. Then do my assignments and projects.

This Friday my noon class was cancelled (yay!), so I had 3 hours (it should have been 4 hours but I had a meeting with the dean) of free time. I decided to make something rather simple.

Stuffed meatloaf rolled with turkey bacon

I only have a piece of bread left, so actually I think I didn't use enough bread to make the meat loaf. It kind of fell apart a little, but it somehow still maintains a pretty good shape.

It was pretty simple dish.

Ingredients:
- 0.5 lb ground beef
- 1 loaf bread
- 1/2 C red wine
- 1/4 C michiu
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 carrots, julienne
- bacon, about 5 slices (depends on the size of the pan)

Instructions:
1) preheat oven at 340F
2) boil 3 quail eggs (takes about 5 minutes)
3) lay several bacon slices on a rectangle/square-shaped pan to cover the bottom and sides of the pan, leaving both ends of the bacon slices hanging outside the pan
4) mix ground beef with red wine (I used petit lyrah), cooking michiu, black pepper and bread. A little bit of salt, if you like. Mix thoroughly with hand.
5) Fill in the pan with half of the ground beef mixture.
6) Lay de-shelled quail eggs and carrots on the ground beef.
7) Fill the pan with the rest of the ground beef mixture.
8) Fold the ends of the bacon inwards
9) Bake for 20-30 minutes

That was a good lunch after days of 'fasting'!

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First bento of the year

Hello again!

Little did I realize that I have entered my last year as an undergraduate. And I have been in college only for 2 years. Sometimes I wish I could graduate normally like others, but tuition is expensive. Why not graduate in 3 years when I can do that?

That being said, my schedule this semester has been very hectic because at least three out of seven courses I am taking right now only exist in Fall semester. Which is to say that once I miss those classes right now, I will have to add another year of expensive tuition and housing and living fees.

Taking 23 credit hours (the normal limit is 18) is more painful than I thought it would be, considering that I'm taking one graduate level course, three 400/senior-level courses, one 300 level course, one 200 level course and only one 100 level class (which apparently takes a lot of my time because most 100 level courses have tons of homework even though they're not that hard).

And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have classes starting at 9:30 all the way till 3:20. Six hours with no break. On the first week, I thought my brain got burnt. The moment I came back to my apartment I just collapsed on my bed, unable to think about anything.

Anyways.

Here's my first bento of the (academic) year. School starts in August, ending in May, so, yes, this is going to be my first bento of the year.

Very simple. Rice seasoned with basil, thyme, salt, mirin, and rice vinegar compacted into squares and a big heart shape. The heart shaped rice actually has a piece of lime and clove seasoned pork chop inside. Simple decoration this time: sliced cheese and nori for the rice, cup cake papers for the rest.

The bottom compartment is the dessert compartment. So it's whole wheat bread decorated with Nutella spread, sandwiching sliced cheese and nutella in between. With a couple of Lorna Doone crackers.

The reason why most of the stuffs here are bite-sized is because as I told you earlier I have no breaks on Tuesday and Thursday. So it has to be something that is easy to eat within 5 minute break in between my classes.

Okay, bento time is over. Time to get a grip on my mind and start doing my homework >.<

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Chicken and Beer

It was actually quite some time ago when my friend left a case of Stag beers in our hotel room. She left earlier than I did, and I called her to ask if she still wanted those beers and she said no. I hate wasting things off, so I took them with me and I didn't know how to deal with them since I don't drink beers.

Chicken breast cooked in beer and herbs on rice vermcelli and sauteed squash

It was a little scary to see the beer foaming up as I heat it up on the saucepan. So basically I boiled a piece of chicken breast with a can of beer, and I added dried basil, thyme and parsley. I added a pinch of black pepper and salt to season. And I actually boiled the rice vermicelli together with the chicken. I added the vermicelli much later than the chicken. To put it simply, all the remaining beer got absorbed by the rice vermicelli.

I like the fact that the chicken had a herby feelings in it, but I don't think children will like this chicken beer >.<

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Bye Bye Bye, Forest

Today was the last day of internship. I'd say I will miss living without a TV, newspaper, internet and phone service. I'm serious. Okay, I did get some phone service in the kitchen and sometimes in my room. I did get unreliable internet service at the lab and at home (but it's always gone whenever it rained because it was a wireless connection). But seriously, no TV and no newspaper. We had some old magazines from like.. 2005 at our house. That's about it.

Work was tiring in the morning - it was hot, and physical work was not really my forte. Mowing the grass, weed eating... picking tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries... No. Not my thing at all. But I do gain some field knowledge from those days, like pruning tomato and apple trees and such.

Dinner was always my joy. It's a pain to think of what to eat. The closest restaurant was like 20 minutes away and rather than driving I'd rather cook at home. Thankfully, we often got lots and lots of tomatoes from the field, and they're really good and sweet!

I think during the past 11 weeks I ate a lot of tomatoes. I normally make tomato sauce by crushing the tomatoes and cooking them under low heat for at least 30 minutes on the stove. When there were some peppers from the field, I'd normally put those in too. There was one time we got onions. I cooked them with the tomato sauce. Yum~

Freshly made tomato sauce with broccoli, cauliflowers, carrots, yummy orange peppers, green pepper and meatballs, seasoned with dried basil, parsley and thyme.

Dixon Springs. Shawnee Forest. I'll miss them :)

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Forest Treats

Well well well! I'm back again from my deep slumber.

I've been living in a forest again for another month, and that explains why I don't really post anything on this blog. I do have internet access but sometimes I'm just too tired to post pictures.

And lately, sad to say, I haven't been making bentos. Sigh. I do have my rice cooker, but since I'm sharing fridge with 3 other people in the house, I don't think I could get as many ingredients to put in a bento. Plus, I don't feel like hogging the kitchen to myself.

I've been working on blueberries. I picked quite a lot of them for my project, and I also helped my company with U-pick sessions where people from all over the place (one lady told me she drove for an hour to get here) went to our company and pick blueberries. These blueberries are sold for $1.50 per lb (which is VERY CHEAP, if you compare them to those in groceries stores).

When I went back to Urbana one time I decided to make beignets (some kind of french doughnut) with blueberries. And so I did! Unfortunately, since I'm not so friendly to baking, I didn't have confectionery sugar in stock, so I had to use granulated sugar instead. But that still does the trick :)

I bought the beignet mix from New Orleans Cafe Du Monde. You can actually buy the mix online and now they sell those mixes at Far East, an Asian store in Champaign, IL. So there's actually no need to go all the way to New Orleans to buy these >.<

And of course, the blueberries were fresh from the tree. The cultivar that I like the most is called Bluetta, which is actually the one I used in the picture above. Another one is called Earliblue, but at that time I hadn't realized that they're sweet, so I hadn't been picking on those. These two are far sweeter than those commecially sold blueberries. One time I brought back a quart of these blueberries and gave them to my friends, and gosh, they liked them so much! They can tell that the blueberries that I picked are far more flavorful and sweeter than the ones they normally buy from the groceries.

Now that it reached the end of July, we no longer have the U-pick sessions. No more blueberries hanging on the bushes - they're all green :(

I miss them T__T

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Happy Re-Birthday!

You see, today is officially my birthday :)

Since I was born in Indonesia, it was officially 12 hours ago. My mum called me when I was about to finish my lab stuff, so I couldn't talk to her for too long. I didn't feel quite right because it's just not June 24th yet in US. But you know, technically it was my birthday.

So, uhh... I went to my friend's house to celebrate his sister's birthday (it's more like his mom who invited me to the house). She made a cake for her daughter, but later on she added my name and her friend's name on the cake. Again, I feel quite not right yet because it's technically not June 24th yet. But it was a fun time down there!!

I ate lots and lots of very very good Indonesian food. Ahh. Such a bliss xD

And then I went back home because I was afraid of the storm (and I was kinda tired too - I almost slept when I drove there since I just got back from the lab). It was storming really really badly. The wind was blowing so strongly, and lightning stroke across the sky.

That was about 10 pm.

Then I made some sweet rice ice cream. You know, it didn't really turn out good. I should have strained the rice away. And it still doesn't give that much rice flavor into the ice cream. That's probably because I used 2 egg yolks, and the richness of the egg yolk just killed the rice flavor :(

Well, no one really celebrated my birthday today, with exception of my friends all across the world (I find it weird yet I'm touched). I'm very very thankful to my friend who BlackBerry Messenger-ed me all the way from Singapore, and my friend from Warwick made sure it's 12 am down here and sent me a message even though her exam was coming in the next few hours. My other close friend, unlike other people on Facebook, sent me a birthday message through Facebook private message instead of instantly clicking my wall and writing two-word birthday wishes.

I'd say I'm very very very blessed. God loves me!

Anyways, a birthday celebration is never complete without blowing a candle. I don't really care about cutting the cake. I just have to blow the candles.

So, to brighten my very special day, I scooped the ice cream I just made, and then stick a small birthday candle from other people's birthday. Well, it's new, but they're kinda like the leftover candles from someone's birthday. And thank God I have a lighter!

I sang a very quick birthday song, a "blow the candle song", and then blew the candle. I didn't have a wish when I blew it. I didn't think of any.

Well now I guess there is only one wish: I hope for the happiness of people who care about me. May they be happy, and may smile be with them. I think that would be the greatest birthday present for me this year!

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Pretzel Ice Cream

After graduation, lots and lots and lots of people left. They also left me tons of stuffs - some of which are plainly junks, some are just awesome: just like the ice cream maker.

I hate to admit it, I'm not an ice cream eater like the rest of the population. Unless it has some unique flavor or texture that can make me remember how yummy it is.

The first and only time that I made ice cream was in my public speech class. One of my classmates taught us how to make ice cream in a ziplock bag using ice and salt as the cooler. He told us that it was normal for high school teachers to do this trick as a demo, but hey, I haven't done it before. Rather, I didn't know it works!

So here I am, stuck in wonder with the ice cream maker. I thought the machine works like magic, like it has some kind of cooler or something. Lucky I read the manual first before I began: it turned out that I had to freeze the freezing bowl before I begin making the ice cream. LOL.

When I was at Walmart two days ago I keep thinking of what unique flavors I can make. I mean, sure, vanilla or chocolate will never go wrong, but I want more than that. I began thinking up random stuffs - fruits, oatmeal, peanut butter... and suddenly it popped out: pretzels.

A salty ice cream. Heh. Why not? Pretzel it is!

I first crushed  low fat pretzels (about as much as a sandwich bag of those) with my drinking cup made of glass (I think you can use anything heavy to pound on it - glass jars works pretty well too). I heated 1 cup of goat milk (omg yes, goat milk! I just found it at Walmart and I thought I'd try it again) in low heat (out of 9, it's about 4). I let it simmer for a while, added about 1/4 cup of sugar and whisked it. Then I added 2 cups of heavy cream and stir it. Oh, a little bit of pure vanilla, too.

And then off we go with the ice cream maker! It took around 30 minutes to make it solid.

One of the greatest mistake was that I forgot to add some salt into it, so I added the salt as the machine swirled my ice cream mix. And yes, it didn't mix properly, so I kept adding more and more salt into the mix.

The result? OVERLY SALTY. I made my friends try them, and well, they're more surprised of why it's salty rather than wondering why it's TOO salty.

Is a salty ice cream such a weird idea?

Well, at first I wanted to top it with freshly pan-fried bacon bits. I think the hot bacon and the slightly salty pretzel ice cream will make a good combo when done properly.

So, things to do for the next pretzel ice cream: use more pretzels to add more flavor (it kinda died as I added the heavy cream) and color, and DON'T ADD MORE SALT!!

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I miss home

I miss my home. I miss my home in Indonesia, and I miss my home in Champaign. Right now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere, doing my summer internship. I can't say it's the most exciting job ever, and it's even hard for me to go through one day after another.

I've never shared kitchen with other people before, so I'm afraid to make a mess in the kitchen. My housemates are all nice people, but it's just me and my personality.

I didn't cook much here. I made fried beehoon once. I couldn't even remember what I had for dinner the past two weeks. That's how sad I am.

Today I made some heavy breakfast that is not cereals nor instant food. That made me happy :)

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Orange Scallop

Okay, time for some scallops! I bougth frozen scallops a while ago. I wish I could have fresh scallops, but I guess frozen scallops were good enough.

thyme-seasoned pan-seared sea scallop, with triple sec (orange liquor) reduction, crispy bacon and cold mango slices

I was planning on using fresh oranges, but it turned out that the oranges were invaded by greenish-grey mold (probably Penicillium italicum- heh). I have half a bottle of triple sec left by my friend at my apartment after he cooked crepe suzette last time. I'm not a fan of liquor, and triple sec is sadly not my favorite either.

First, I fried the bacon to get the drippings. I used the drippings to cook the scallop. After the scallop turned a little bit brown, I added triple sec and thyme, and let it simmer. Meanwhile, I chopped the bacon and sliced the mango. I left the sliced mango in the fridge so they stay cold.

When the scallop was done, I took out the mango from the fridge, and started plating the dish. I sprinkled some sea salt to add the flavor, since I didn't use salt at all when I cooked the scallops. The dish had to be eaten quickly, or else the scallop would turn cold and the mango warm.

Overall, I'd say it's pretty good if only the triple sec didn't leave some bitterness in it. The hot and cold combination was a good idea :)

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Pork Mozzarella Croquette

Had sudden craving for melty mozzarella cheeze. Yep, just like the ones on top of pizza.

Before I came to know cheeses better, I always thought that mozzarella was a magic cheese. During my childhood times, what we called 'cheese' is limited to sliced processed cheese, and the only cheese available in the market was produced by Kraft. It made me wonder why those processed cheese won't turn out like those on top of pizza, and now I know why.

Someone out there probably made this before I did, but this is my original recipe that I had thought as I walked back from school, thinking of what to do with the meats I have in my freezer. I am moving to Simpson, IL, for internship this summer, so at the very least I have to clear up my fridge.

So, here we go: pork mozzarella croquette :)

Recipe:

- 1 lb (500g) ground pork

- 3 Tbsp light soy sauce

- 1 tsp white pepper

- 3 Tbsp corn starch

- 1 egg white

- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
- 1C shredded mozzarella cheese
- frying oil

Instructions:
1) Mix ground pork, soy sauce, white pepper and corn starch until well-mixed. Marinate in fridge for ~30 min.
2) Divide the marinated ground pork into 7-8 balls.
3) Take half of a ball and flatten to about 0.5cm thickness.
4) Fill in with ~2/3 Tbsp mozzarella.
5) Put another half of the ball of meat and cover the mozzarella.
6) Shape the mozzarella-filled meat ball on AP flour, make sure all are covered well. Dust off excess flour, and compress the ball using both hands to make the ball firm.
7) Dip in egg white, then roll on panko bread crumbs until it is well covered.
8) Repeat steps 3-7 for all the meat balls.
9) Deep fry at medium-high temperature (i.e., from scale 1 to 7, it's 5) until it is golden brown.
10) Serve when hot.

I suppose you could change the meat to ground beef or ground chicken according to your preferences. I'm a pork lover, and incidentally ground pork is the only ground meat left in my freezer.

You probably could left the croquette for like 30 minutes before the cheese starts to solidify.

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Skew skew skew!

It's graduation time again. Tons of my good friends left the college, and it makes me so sad. I'm especially sad that my foodies friends are gone :'( Now I have to find people who like to eat and cook.... >.<

The end of semester also means cleaning up my fridge. I still have quite a lot of meat in the fridge, so I have to start using them every day so I have nothing left in the fridge. I wouldn't want to eat meat that has been stored for 3 months in the freezer....

Sate babi (pork skewer) with mushroom, green onion and onion

I wanted to use ginger, but it turned out that the ginger germinated and grew, and I could see molds on it, too. So I threw it away :(

This is my original recipe. It's pretty good, but I'm sure you can modify it to suit your taste :)

Recipe:
- 1 piece pork loin, cubed
- 1 1/2 Tbsp sweetened soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp white sesame seed
- 1 1/2 Tbsp melted butter
- 1/2 tsp minced garlic
- 1/2 bulb onion, cut into thin squares of 2cmx2cm
- 1 green onion, cut into 2cm rods
- 3 button mushrooms
- 1 T butter

Steps:
1) Marinate pork in sweetened soy sauce, light soy sauce, sesame seed, butter and garlic. Mix well and leave in fridge for 1 night.
2) Preheat oven to 350F.
3) While waiting for the oven to heat up, place marinated meat, onion, mushroom, and green onion in alternates (positioning doesnt matter - use your own creativity)
4) Melt 1 T butter and mix into the marinade sauce. Brush the meat with the marinade + butter sauce and put in oven for 5 minutes.
5) Brush the meat again with the marinade and butter sauce, and set the temperature of oven to BROIL mode. Leave for another 5 minutes.
6) Turn the skewer over and brush with marinade and butter sauce again. Leave for another 5 minutes.
7) Serve.

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Green Tea Caviar

As far as I am concerned, I am so very excited with spherification. I know, I know. I'm like 7 years late, but who cares?

Just for additional information, spherification of liquids creates a product that has texture similar to caviar, and thus they are often called 'faux caviar'.

So I tried using orange juice at first. I've seen people blogging saying that you have to increase the pH if it's too low, but curiosity always comes first. It failed miserably, and the sodium alginate precipitates out :(

I don't have any other liquids at home to experiment with, so I tried using green tea powder in water.

First problem: I don't have a weighing balance, so I just approximated the amounts. THIS TURNED OUT TO BE A VERY BAD IDEA. When I tried my product I could feel extreme bitterness, which I found out is caused by excessive calcium.

Second problem: I don't have good hand controls, so I couldn't shape the caviars well. Some of them looked like biconcaved red blood cells (LOL).

Third problem: the green tea powder doesn't really dissolve in water, so as the result, the liquid within the green tea caviar became rather grainy. Eww.

I wish I had bought sodium citrate or reverse spherification kit instead of just the conventional spherification kit :'(

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Shuriken?

I bought this last week. They're called estrellitas (which I think means little stars), but no matter how I look at them, they look like tiny shuriken... or it's just me and my wild imagination.

Estrellitas with meatballs and ham in tomato soup

Okay, they don't look that wonderful. I still don't have a sense on soup presentation, especially when the soup is not homogenous like this. Normally I'd just add some garnish like parsley on soups.

I haven't been placing so much care in food presentation during exam time. Quick, good food would be the best during these times :S

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Pasta Days

I can't agree better that the easiest food to cook for a college student is pasta. With ready-made sauces available in various flavors, it doesn't take you more than 15 minutes to prepare a simple pasta dish.

Orzo with meatballs and green onions in Bertolli's tomato vodka sauce

Very useful during exam period. Cook the pasta and dump everything into the pre-made sauce on a pan, heat it for 5-10 minutes and voila!

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Penne penne penne...

I need to start reducing all the food ingredients in my apartment because I'll be moving to southern Illinois for internship this summer. Well, a box of pasta won't rot that easily, but I figure that I need to reduce as many meat products in the freezer as possible.

Penne tossed with sun dried tomato and ground beef, ricotta cheese, thyme, Italian parsley, and ground Parmesan cheese

Honestly, I don't think it looks THAT appetizing, but my friends said it looks really good. Hmm. I prefer the appearance just before I added the ricotta cheese.

Penne with Sweddish meatball and buffalo style chicken balls in creamy sauce

I cooked this for one of my club's potluck. Sadly, all the cream sauce somehow evaporated or absorbed by the penne, so the penne was kinda too soft and there was very little sauce when I served it to my friends :(

I haven't been eating anything creamy lately, so I decided to make my pasta creamy. It's actually really easy to make white sauce.

- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 Tbsp all purpose flour
- 1 cup milk

Heat the butter in the pan until it melts and mix well with flour before adding the milk slowly to avoid clump formation.

For thicker sauce, use a little bit more flour. I use 2% milk. It's definitely creamier than if I were to use skim milk. Use heavy cream if you want a really, really thick and creamy white sauce.

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Good Breakfast, Good Day

Nowadays I can barely make it to cook myself a good breakfast. Every single spare moment I have, I'd rather spend it by sleeping. It's been rather tiring lately :(

- easy over egg (flower shaped)
- sauer kraut
- broccoli and cheese
- pan fried bacon
- tomato ketchup

Took me about 20 minutes to prepare everything. I was too lazy to use two different pans for the egg and the bacon, so I did the egg first, then the bacon.

I suddenly remembered one of the guest speakers for my class came and asked, "What do you have for breakfast today?". I asnwered "omelette", and she was really taken aback. She said that omelette is a Sunday morning food.

And there I was, rather surprised, too. I mean, how hard is it to make an omelette?

Seems like everyone in the US is very accustomed to eating cereal bars in the morning while they go to work. Well, I understand, because I did that several times this semester, and cereal bars definitely are great helps when you're in a hurry.

But no matter what, I still prefer having a slow breakfast in the morning :)

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Onion Head

 I used to like Onion Head emotes a lot. They're really cute :3 Looking at them make my mind at peace~

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Feastful Weekend

I wouldn't have realized it if my friend didn't tell me. Aside from this blog, I also posted my food photos on Facebook, and she told me that I posted 5 different food photos this weekend. Quite a lot for a college student, I guess?

This is called lontong sayur. It's an Indonesian dish my mum used to make for breakfast. I'm not particularly into lontong (= rice cake). I don't like the texture =(

The reason why I started making lontong out of the blue was because somehow I missed my mum. Actually, I miss someone cooking for me. And anyways I have some spare semolina rice from my research. I don't really like semolina, so I figure that I should somehow process it in a different way before I can eat it. Spanish rice is an option, but I decided to make lontong.

As expected, I didn't eat that many pieces of lontong even though I made two big chunks of it (it's a waste of gas if I only make a tiny portion). In the end I distributed them to my friends here, and I ate the curry I made with rice, my favorite carb!

It's pretty easy to make lontong. You just need a heat-resistant plastic bag, fill in the bag with 1/3-1/2 uncooked rice, poke some holes (so that water can enter the bag), tie the bag (you can just make a knot or use rubber bands), and boil with plenty of water for about 3 hours. Yes, 3 hours.

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Thumbprint Cookie

The baking idiot is back to make some mess in her kitchen!

I call it the "tower of poo".

So this idiot basically melted the chocolate chips first and poured it into a sandwich bag and squeezed it out of the bag onto the cookie dough. I thought it would magically spreads down and make a good pool of chocolate filling, but no.

For the cookie recipe, I used this. I modified it slightly. Instead of using almond extract, I used chocolate liquor. And of course the filling is changed to chocolate instead of raspberry.

Guys, don't follow what I did, okay? Unless you really want to make a replica out of the "tower of poo"!

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Cinnamon Roll Bento

My friend kinda requested for a Hello Kitty or Cinnamon Roll bento. I didn't really have enough time, and she said Cinnamon Roll would be easier. So... here we go, Cinnamon Roll bento!

They're really basic. The ingredients are:
- rice
- nori
- ham (for the blush and the bento box lining)
- meatballs
- frozen mixed vegetables (the corn, carrot, green bean and green peas come in one package, so I had to separate them one by one)
- cherry tomatoes

If you notice, I kinda run out of my creativity. I've been using the same ingredients over and over again. There are plenty of reasons to that, but the main reason is that I'm a college student who lives in a single apartment. That just means that I can't buy a wide arrange of food ingredients. They'll go bad before I can finish them. Take a cucumber for example. It's going to take more than 1 week for me to fully utilize a cucumber assuming that I'm not eating cucumber every day. Before I could finish it, they'd go bad :(

And I don't have a roommate to share the food with. So I'm the only one who finishes whatever I made.

I don't really wish that I have a roommate/housemate, though. She'll go crazy with my randomness to cook at any time of the day at any kind of situation. I'll occupy the entire kitchen just for myself. And I bet she won't be able to stand the smell coming out from the kitchen every day haha!

By the way, it rained again today. Pretty heavily. Spring is here. Or has been here for quite some time, actually.

I'm not looking forward to summer. I hate heat :(

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