i'm back!

since i'm a student again, i guess it's time to continue my chronicle of the horrible things i cook and eat. i'm in a grad program now, which equals even less time to cook than before.

therefore, i have invested in a slow cooker. usually on sundays, i'll make up a giant pot of something to always have at hand for the entire week. this past week, it wa

s chicken soup. unfortunately, this is the only picture of it, before it's cooked. and i'm sure you don't want to see what's left in the pot a week later. a 4 lb chicken, 5 celery stalks, 4 carrots, 1 giant onion, 2 bay leaves, black pepper. now, that was fun without a vegetable peeler or chopping board.

SlapChop

this is food related, so i guess it's allowed here.  if you're not familiar with the SlapChop, it's an infomercial gadget, presented by the guy who does ShamWow!  as well.  curse the remix for being so catchy!

Furikake

hello there faithful readers.  it's been a year hiatus, but it's never too late to post cell phone pictures of bad food!

i was running late to work and pulled out what i thought was a takeout box of leftover fried rice for lunch, just enough to tide me over til a real lunch after i finished.  i was in a rush so i grabbed the wrong box, of course, and ended up with a container filled with some not-so-good-quality white rice.  an hour before i was supposed to be off, i found out that i'd have to stay longer, so i was stuck with my unappetizing rice.  what's a Bao to do when there's not even a stray soy sauce packet around to flavor restaraunt rice?  the answer is simple:  leftover Cooler Ranch Doritos furikake!

i only had the doritos b/c they were past their "fresh" date and therefore no one but me wanted to eat them.  before you ask, no, it didn't taste gross.  after crushing them in the bag for tiny pieces, the chips were just crunchy enough to add some texture and the savory cool ranch flavor went quite well with the rice.

other chip flavors that would compliment rice well:

nacho cheese

wasabi

sour cream and onion

ketchup

taco

flavors that would not taste good:

mesquite bbq

dill pickle (pringles now makes these)

chili cheese

pizza

sweet potato

anyone with what they think would taste good rice rice?  bugles perhaps?

inactivity

been in kind of a cooking slump lately, so haven't made anything interesting lately. only thing of note was a beef stew maybe a month ago. thank goodness i am not the only cook anymore or else it'd be rice and sauce every day.

happened to be in sd last week and tried the loco moco at the hawaiian bbq place next to taco motion in PB. it was delicious. the hamburger was so meaty tasting... kind of tough, b/c it was like all meat, but meat factor made up for that. wish the cabage underneath was cooked or something though. aside from that, i was really really hungry, and that was dinner, then breakfast and lunch for the next day along with 3 red delicious apples.

"lookie what the cat threw up!"

once upon a time several years ago, trader joe's sold something called a "spicy lemon soda". it was immensely unpopular and at one point, they'd sold it at 2$/6bottles to try and get rid of it. and it still did not disappear fast enough. i, however, have a taste for sweets that usually come in combinations of spicy, sweet, salty and by extension, loved the soda. it kind of burned and left a warm almost roiling feeling in your tummy when you drank it.

one day, a year and a half ago, i had a cold with a stuffy nose and really couldn't taste anything. then i figured i might as well try and concoct something warm and flavorful, and perhaps sinus clearing with expectorant properties. what happened was that really gross looking hot lemonade with a teaspoon of cayenne pepper in it. it didn't taste very good. but the chili did help with the phlegm and i'm sure the lemon bits gave me much needed vitamins.

HK student lunch

had lunch with my cousin today. she has to go to school (she's 16), but gets a 1 hour lunch break, so i took 2 minibuses down to her school and met here there just as she got out from class. most students in HK don't eat in the school canteen b/c it is overpriced and the food sucks. they usually go to nearby "tea restaraunts" or bring lunch/go home during their ample lunch breaks and order combo meals that come with a drink. for example, she got a roast pork and wintermelon stew with rice and a cold milk tea (2.83 US$). i got a "student set meal" of bacon (and supposedly pork chop) on top of spaghetti covered with a goopy unspicy curry sauce and a cold milk coffee (2.31 US$). unfortunately, i was a bit rushed this morning to make it on time, so i left my camera at home. food here can be crazy cheap like that to cater to students, or really expensive. i mean, a full hot meal with choice of drink for under 3 bucks is unheard of in the states. although.. i must say that local student/kid fare is pretty gross. teens seem to like eating things like creamy tomato goop covered rice and spaghetti with ham or spam on the side. i had to try a student meal though, hehe. but next time.. i'll stick to the more traditional fare like my cousin. oh oh, even better, i was hungry 3 hours later because i didn't eat much of that stuff.. so i went to a thai restaraunt and had afternoon tea there. gotta love the brit influence. for 2$ USD i had a hot lemon tea and a bowl of thai style pork chop rice noodles with bean sprouts. i think one reason why food is cheaper here is b/c portions are nearer to CharSiuBao-sized meals. so if you eat a lot, you can order different stuff for variety! yum yum.

is it.. tea time?

baked beans on toast. not a big fan of heinz. this is some other brand.. maybe it's bush's or henry's store brand. van de camps pork and beans rank pretty high on my list however, they are not to be confused with baked beans. extremely filling and satisfying. and flatulence inducing.

korean feast

i wen to the zion market with my korean friend, who admittedly knows nothing about food, but can read labels in korean *grin*

this was going to be dinner for two.. but somehow it ended up being dinner for 4 + leftovers. i think we got a little food crazy. lighting in the kitchen is always too dim. top- grilled salted mackerel, right- dukbukge, bottom- laver, left and counterclockwise- tofu pockets with seasoned rice, kimchee, spicy sweet fishcake, seasoned cucumbers, soybeans. plus the ubiquitous rice.

pear season!

actually, it's not pear season anymore. and if it was pear season, maybe it was in the beginning of october. i really don't know, but that's when massive amounts of pears started arriving in the markets. maybe getting an almanac would help... if i were a farmer. i think i bought one of every pear i could find that day, minus the really expensive ones (aka organics) of course.

seckels, bartlett, d'anjou, starkrimson, comice

taco rice

well, i made this a year and a half ago, and i don't think i posted anything about it.. remembered making this due to mmm-yoso's and others' reminiscences about taco rice. i didn't have any lettuce, cheese, or tomatoes... but tacomeat+onions+sauce on rice is close enough. it probably doesn't taste nearly as good when made by professionals... it tasted pretty bad, in fact. that's why there's some bbq sauce on the top in hopes that it could be salvaged--i mean, bbq sauce makes everything taste better.

rice bowl

bulgogi and kimchi on rice for late night snack.. some months ago.

the meat was but a fraction of several pounds i'd bought from DB marketworld and cooked with onions previously. even reheated.. it's ooooohhh soooo yummmyyyy.

sweets from someone sweet?

"...the candy man can because he mixes it with love and makes the world go 'round..."

that's what little Charlie Bucket would have you believe, but as the oompa loompas pointed out, they'll make your teeth rot out and get fat if you eat too much. however, i still have a fondness for novel candies (especially gum) despite the melodic warnings from little orange men. these are some of the edible souvenirs The Brain brought back from a trip to the far east.

the inserts from the xylish gums have some sort of cartoon printed on them and can be folded into a smaller sized box when your supply dwindles.

clockwise from top: xylish sugarfree fruity mint, lotte "bitter" yuzu and grapefruit flavor, whiteen sugerfree strawberry mint, haitai smoke-breath neutralizer(?) gum, glico "peach mint" watering kiss mint

not seen in the first is the xylish hypercool mint which is like chewing listerine. it's so strongly minty that it is almost bitter. the best tasting ones was were the peachmint and fruity mint.

stay tuned for the part 2 of the candy series! (probably in 2 months)

i spy

with my very own eyes:

12 motorcycle policemen

1 firetruck

3 police squad cars

1 FBI agent

1 building twinkling like a christmas tree

1 news van

2 news helicopters

1 jacque cousteau-esque exploder-chamber thingie

1 person trancing out and dancing to the beat of the evacuation alarms

... just kidding about the last one

starbuck's coffee

stinks. it's waaay too bitter (the mild) and leaves a sour aftertaste even when black. i really gotta ask my uncle what the name of the cafe near echo park with the 10 thousand dollar coffee maker is. mmm.. it was so smooth...

maybe i just like coffee less concentrated than most. i've taken to making my own coffee, but as i'm not at HQ and desperately crave caffiene... there is no other alternative. i love dark chocolate covered expresso beans, but that might not be a good breakfast. i mean, without bacon and fresh blackberries, it's just not a balanced meal.

the lowly potato

As my brother says, I am a eater of the most lowly and humble groveling foods that our society can offer. this group would include beans, gruel, and potatoes. my dinner a few nights ago only strengthen his statement. after a really long day i just wanted something to fill my belly quick so i could go to sleep and hopefully wake up rested for my exam. dinner turned out to be a microwaved yukon potato with some butter and a bit of kimchee, just for an added side excitement. yes, once again i ate a starch and pickled vegetables for dinner. guess it's a step up from ketchup. those vitamins sure come in handy... let me suffice to say that i made up for that meal by a much better one during the weekend. o-toro/kaki/unagi wa totemo oishii desu yo.



it's ridiculous how many pictures i have yet to post about. it's been busy times, so i'll get around to it eventually, especially when i'm an ex-college student.

Charred

It's been nearly one month since my last post, but this post is unfortunately not about food. I was starting to get cabin fever and the smoke was starting to get to me, so I left San Diego with a friend from Diamond Bar. We actually tried to leave the night before... but all northbound traffic on the 5 was shut off past Pendleton at night. La Jolla isn't too close to the fires, but I wanted to be closer to family...

These are some pictures I snapped from the car as we went north on Wednesday. It was mid afternoon. These are what I think parts of the Horno fire along Camp Pendleton and Oceanside. There were even flames right across the freeway from the San Onofre nuclear power plant (it probably wouldn't be good to have that catch on fire or burn power line poles.. so there was a lonely firetruck guarding the area) and right behind the inland border checkpoint. There was scorched land all the way up to the asphalt in many places. But those weren't places next to homes. It looked like Mars or an apocalypse outside.

I hope this will turn out ok. Thank you to everyone who's helping out.

http://www.fire.ca.gov/ http://www.kpbs.org/news/fires











this is near the same area past San Onofre on a drive up mid-august.

boiled potatoes

always looking for cheap food options, i've taken a page from America's pioneering ancestors who had to make do with what little they had. here i've concocted a potato stew flavored with salt pork. (maybe i'm just watching too much of Frontier House)

2 slices of bacon (er, salt pork is a little bit tooo unhealthy.. it's more fat than pork!) chopped up into a cold pot. heated on medium until the the fat started to melt all liquidly from the bacon. took 5 smallish-medium potatoes, sliced them up into fries as thick as my thumb, and threw those in the pot along with whatever veggie i had at hand. this time, it was cubes of a zucchini. stirred it around a bit, then added some packaged veggie stock (stockpiled from the Days of Lost Wisdom) and water in a 3:1 ratio, enough to cover an inch in the bottom of the pot, at least. put a tiny sprinkle of chili and ~1 tbsp of vinegar for flavoring. After boiling, cover pot and simmer on low for 20-30 mins (or until the taters get cooked). usually tastes better if allowed to sit a while before eating or reheated.

note to the brain - yes, sausages too

icy refreshing chicken broth

here's a couple things i made a while back. don't let the first picture deceive you, it's not as untasty as it looks. i split one of those little mini eggplants down the middle, filled it with garlic, dribbled salt and olive oil over it, and then pan grilled it slowly that the juicy insides would slowly cook itself.



these were the toughest, waxiest, limpest green beans i could find. they were also on sale for a ridiculously low price. after letting it age for almost another week (i kind of forgot about them...) i decided it was time to work my magic on 'em. i tossed them in a pot with some water, shrimp paste, fish sauce, and fried garlic and set it to simmer for a looong time. so soft and tender afterwards.. almost.. mushy. but not suite. they were too tough to start out with to get mushy. my roomates all made faces and closed their doors. i am evil.



last of all, this is what i ate for dinner last night? the night before? it's all a blur with the lovely moloko vellocet they gave me. and the wooden choppers aren't quite ready to handle solid food yet plus they need to be aged and treated. ah.. cold jook with dried green shiso leaf on top. and nothing beats an icy refreshing chicken broth with an ice cube floating around in it...

Ouchies Food

i'm missing some teeth. actually, i've exiled them from my mouth and have replaced them with wooden dentures, just like george w. the first. had to fast for the anesthesia, and boy, was that some good stuff. i had to try really hard to keep from cracking up at the dr.'s instructions. afterwards i was really numb. and yes folks, i have a drinking problem. i keep missing my mouth!

so what's am i eating today? lots and lots of cold chicken broth. and very recently, a very small trader joe's blueberry and cream yogurt. i don't usually like yogurt unless used in savory dishes, so either i'm really hungry, or this stuff really is good. i'm trying to avoid reading food blogs. everything sounds tasty right now. even those weird american sushi rolls with cream cheese in it. hmm, kind of reminds me of a snack i used to eat as a kid. i'd spread a slice of ham with cream cheese, roll it up, and viola, deliciousness.

scrambled eggs

the brown bits in the egg are that "tianjian preserved vegetable" in the background. it's been a while since i've eaten any sort of 冬菜 or 菜脯 with scrambled eggs as a meal at home or in a restaurant. chinese comfort food? i'm a sucker for anything preserved, salty, and spicy. one of my favorite dishes in the whole wide world is 梅菜扣肉。i wonder where i can find Hakka and ChiuChow style food down here in SD? i always have a craving for preserved lemon duck soup. it's a rarity nowadays of sorts. not many restaurants seem to want to go through the trouble of making it, and places that do make it only make a limited amount of it per day and you have to order it in advance.

you can't find good preserved lemons in the supermarket. that is the kind of thing little old ladies who smell like mothballs (ah, memories) make at home. hmm.. who can guess what my next project is going to be?