Love in the Glass

Valentine's Day is over, but I'm still in the mood for hearts simply because I have a heart-shaped mold that I have never used before.

Orange, plain, and chai latte gelatin layers with chocolate heart.

You know, strange ideas always pop out when I need to focus on studying. Which is to say that creative ideas are born under stress. At least that works for me.

It's just a simple recipe - anyone can make this by following whatever the recipe says. Just replace the liquid used -- for chai latte layer, use a chai latte to replace the water to make the gelatin. If you don't have chai latte, you can replace it with coffee latte (coffee and milk). You can even use grape juice for a dark purple.

Just play with colors :)

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Happy V Day + CNY

It's a little late, but happy Valentine's day and happy Chinese New Year! Gong xi fa cai, wan shi ru yi!

Well.. the reason why I didn't post anything because:
1) I was doing my homework,
2) I was reading 169 chapters of Glass Mask, a super old manga by Suzue Miuchi, and
3) I had a group meeting with my friends.

on February 14th. A very sad day? Not really. Haha. It's a Sunday, so I get to rest and have some fun on that day.

Ok, I made a bento for V Day even though it's a little late. I suddenly got the inspiration (even though I was supposed to finish another 17 pages of assignment (I finished 25 pages earlier, so I wasn't really procrastinating - I just needed a break!).

And... there we go. Baka couple bento!

A very happy couple, ne? Ingredients used: fishball, ham, crab sausage, lap cheong, white rice, and nori.

Leftover ham and crab sausage. I didn't expect to make a crab sausage rolled in ham. It turned out to be rather cute <3

And the fishballs go well with the ham, too! What I did was just cutting the ham into star-like shape and stick it into the fishball using a toothpick that has been broken into halves.

I cut the ham and the nori using a pair of scizzors.


The theme was Valentine's Day, so I tried to incorporate as many red/pink stuffs. And no vegetables this time. Yes. I'm sorry for being a little unhealthy.

Alright then, time for another 17 pages of assignment! Gambare!!

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Sheperd's Pie

It's not that I'm in love with potatoes. In fact out of the starchy foods available, potatoes is not in the top list. I bought some potatoes quite some time ago, and I figured that they'll go bad if I don't use them soon.

My first plan was to make a perkedel (Indonesian fried mashed potatoes?) with silk egg tofu in the middle, but the plan changed due to various reasons. To be honest, I'm not really good at frying. I just don't get frying. How much oil, how high the heat should be and all that.. And I find it weird that a lot of my friends think frying is the easiest cooking method :S

Anyways, I finally managed to make a Sheperd's Pie. The first time I made a Sheperd's Pie was during Hoem Econs back in secondary 2. That was... let's see, 7 years ago? And then since I was living in a dorm with no stoves, I couldn't practice cooking for my exam. So I asked my teacher if I could repeat a recipe that had been done in class, and what I could think of was Sheperd's Pie. I almost ran out of time, but I managed to get it in time. The most wonderful thing was that my teacher didn't even try my Sheperd's Pie and she gave me a 9 out of 10. Amazing, isn't it? And when I asked her, she simply said "I know it tastes good".

It DID taste good, though.

Now that I think about it again, it was actually pretty simple. But for a 13 year old me, making a Sheperd's Pie seemed so tough.

And now.. I made a simple version of the pie. I didn't glaze the potato with egg, so it didn't really brown much. But it's yummy~

Beef Sheperd's Pie

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Sop Kambing

Kambing literally translates to "goat", but for some reason eating goat for food doesn't sound as good as eating lamb. Either way - goat soup or lamb soup - the translation sounds too weird for me.

I have an unbelievably low blood pressure even though arguably I get heated up pretty quickly occasionally. So I figure that it should be pretty safe to indulge in lamb meats. From all that I know, eating lamb can easily cause hypertension. I have no scientific proof, but apparently people who just ate lamb have the tendency to get angry faster than normal. Haha.

Anyways... I was trying to find lamb ribs in groceries store. In the end, I found a rack of lamb imported from Australia (wow!) at Walmart. $11.60. Pretty expensive meat. A pack of 2 lb ground pork probably costs around $3.

Since I just bought a slow cooker last month, I figured out that I should make use of it. But it was actually a bad idea. Since a slow cooker does not have the ability to bring water to boil instantly, the blood from the lamb started flowing out, making the soup dark pink.

It was the most disgusting soup I've ever seen.

After 2 hours of cooking using a slow cooker, I decided to just transfer it to a pot and cook it using a stove. It turned so much better, and for some reason, I can feel the flavor better when it's cooked using a stove.

Sop kambing with emping, sambal, white rice and onion fritters

It wasn't as good as the one sold near my house in my hometown (probably because I don't use MSG haha), but it's good enough to satisfy my sudden crave for sop kambing.

But seriously... rack of lamb contains unbelievably large amount of saturated fats. Before cooking, I already removed the subcutaneous fats dangling on the meat. And that probably takes up 10-20% of the rack of lamb. After I left the pot of soup on the stove without heating it (it was pretty cold outside - probably feels like a room with an A/C set to 15 degrees C?). When I came back about 30 minutes later, I found a DISC - not a pool - of opaque fats floating on top of the soup! I could even make a candle out of it! And I didn't even place the soup inside the fridge.

I can't imagine what would happen if I didn't remove the fats from the meat. Imagine that much fats clogging up my blood vessels! o__O

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I Need More Water Bottles!

On the very first day I made a lunch box this semester, I destroyed the new water bottle that came together with the bento box because I poured hot tea into it.

This morning, I made a free water bottle I got from the university's Quad Day bent because I poured boiling water into that bottle. I simply assumed that the water bottle is made with the same material as Nalgene water bottles just because the color and the material looks similar. But, they're not.

I don't have that many water bottles left. I tried bringing a tumbler (which I got for free, too) to school, but apparently the tumbler is not insulated well enough that the hot tea I brought from home became cold once I reached my class.

I have a very well insulated water bottle, but it doesn't contain that much water and it's heavy because it's made of metal. I notice that my school bag has been ripping apart (I've been using it since I was in high school - so that makes it the 4th or 5th anniversary this year?) and I don't want to add in unnecessary weights to it.

I want a Nalgene water bottle :(

Something like this?

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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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