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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