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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