Gwendolyn's Eggman

"I am the Eggman.."

"..I am the Walrus. coo coo cachoo.."

Beatles - I Am The Walrus

salty, bitter, sour... and tastes like burning

*from over a month ago*

this is, without a doubt, the most dispicable thing i will eat or drink this week. it looks like someone ralphed an orange into my cup. which really isn't that far off from
what it really is. still in that strange food mood and wanting to cure a lack of appetite, i decided to try a tested and true remedy--chanh muoi in the form of a salty lemon drink. i haven't really done any research, but it seems that for chinese food, picking any two out of salty, sour, sweet in combination is supposed to whet the appetite. i can't really prove it, but i point to the various preserved salty orange or lemon peels, plums, and olive snacks out there that claim on the back of their packages to relieve drunkeness, motion sickness, lack of appetite, etc. the phrase for it is 開胃 (hoi1 wai6). (lit. to open the stomach)

i was rummaging around my small stock of odd preserved foods when i rediscovered a dusty jar of vietnamese style pickled lemons. go to any vietnamese place and you'll be able to find a beverage called salty lemonade or salty lemon soda. usually it's a preserved lemon mashed up with sugar and with carbonated water and ice poured over it. tonight.. i decided to make my own version. it was a big mistake. especially with the series of mutations it underwent out of desperation. first off, it wasn't sour enough. and it was kind of bitter. so i added some sour tamarind powder. which made it taste slighty revolting. it now tasted like pulpy sinigang gone wrong. in an effort to make it taste less revolting, i added some cayeanne pepper. it failed to drown out the bitter, acrid, spicy taste. after a few sips (it burned) this nasty concoction went down the drain.

fried rice, "stircook", and egg burrito

fried rice. sliced chinese sausage and broccoli stems with soy sauce and garlic. i like broccoli stems more than the flower/leaf parts. the taste and texture is similar to chinese broccoli, gai lan.

veggie uh.. stircook. ~15-20 mins

assorted fresh vegetables: broccoli florets, green beans, soy beans(ok, frozen), italian squash
minced garlic
small amount of water to cover bottom of pan
~2 tbsp oyster sauce
~.5 tbsp cornstarch mixed with a small amount of water

for wimpy electric stoves without good heat, i sometimes have to drown things in water and kind of parboil a bit or else i could be standing around all day waiting for something to cook. that's b/c flat pan + odd shapes = bad heat contact. cut, chopped, prepared, etc. cooked veggies with garlic for a few mins until the green beans just start to change color, then drained most of the water, and put in the oyster sauce. then added cornstarch slowly, stirring, to thicken up the sauce.

breakfast omelet in a flour tortilla. i had the heat too hot and had to flip it prematurely, so it's all kind of folded up. looks overcooked, but it was actually quite fluffy and soft. ~5 mins.

2 eggs
a few tbsp water
a few tbsp cream (or a good splash of milk is what i use usually)
~1/3 diced italian squash
salt
seasoned with hotsauce.

whisked everything together in a bowl with a fork, pour into hot pan at medhigh heat and flipped it. try for when the bottom just starts to get brown (unlike above = too hot or waited too long). give it a few seconds.. topped with hotsauce. consumed.

bargh, such boring food.

just a sandwich

a sack lunch minus the sack, juice box, and fruit snack. aka, just a sandwich. pan broiled zucchini (with some chicken broth 'cause it was starting to dry out), store-bought smoked turkey, avocado, feta cheese on some fresh wheat bread. don't like eating regular supermarket bread like wonderbread or orowheat anymore. you know, the kind you can keep unrefrigerated for 2 weeks in the tropics and still be fine. it kind of tastes funky and has a sour aftertaste.. maybe it's the preservatives and extra sugar? anyhow, it's pretty hearty, and like ~20% day's fiber with the veggie?

oatmeal cookie.. maybe?

i have a hard enough time getting and being able to store ingredients for normal cooking, so i don't usually bake. you know, baking powder, brown sugar, etc. on a lark, i found a few recipes for oatmeal cookies online and adapted them to fit my deficient pantry and 25 dollar a week grocery goal. what a surprise the ingredients are.

1.5 sticks butter
1.5 cup oatmeal
1 cup flour
.5 tsp salt
1 egg
.66 cup sugar
1-1.5 tsp vanilla extract
two handfuls of dried cranberries
juice from half an orange

melted the butter and mixed with the egg, then added that in portions to a big bowl with the dry ingredients and mixed. poured in the almost forgotten vanilla. had half an orange--so why not add that in too? formed into semi-flat lumps with spoons and baked 2 batches at 375 for 10-12 mins until they were golden brown.

the result? a bit moist, buttery and kind of nutty flavored, and more like a mini scone than a cookie. comments received:

"these are really good!" <- she was really hungry
"it's not sweet enough" <- my roommate who bakes. in my defense, i only added half the sugar recommended b/c i don't like really sweet stuff like cake and danishes
"are these Tollhouse?"<- my flatmate who is the queen of all foods frozen and instant.. especially easy mac
"...is this peanut butter?" <- dubious sense of taste suspected

goma ae

goma ae some sort of japanese spinach dish using sesame (i think goma = sesame). i found a bunch of recipes online, and they all contained soy sauce, and some sort of sweetener or sake. boiled up a bunch of spinach.. ~2 mins to cook it. stuck them in some cold running water to cool. squeezed out the water (and probably a good deal of vitamins, oh well) then chopped into 3-4 cm lengths. dressed them with about a tablespoon of soy sauce, 2 of some weak mirin (a sweet sake), and some sesame seeds i toasted in my frying pan.

garlic mashed potatoes

i took 3 large russet potatoes, boiled them for an indeterminate amount of time until they were cooked. took an entire bulb of garlic, peeled the cloves, then tossed that in the boiling water to cook for 5-10 mins before the potatoes were done. drained them. then smashed em as well as i could with a wooden spoon. i mixed in maybe 1 cup of Trader Joe's chicken broth, 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream, a tsp of margerine and a scattering of finely chopped green onions. added a lot of liquids to keep it from being dry. didn't really keep track of how much stuff i used. but it came out really rich and garlicky (the whole apt, in fact) and the roomies approved. except for the extreme lumpiness. hey--the lumpy gives it character. it's um.. vintage.

fresh blackberries and homemade whipped cream

step 1: pour heavy whipping cream into small container and shake shake shake! (much easier than whipping it... with chopsticks)

step 2: note the thick, but not stiff, consistancy of fresh whipped cream on top of some really really really ripe and sweet blackberries. in season, and really cheap right now. for berries, that is.

step 3: take another messier picture and eat the yummy mess

soup + crunk

what i ate when i got sick last week.


this stuff is gross. stay away. only potable for the truly crunk.

Lunch at the Estate

lunch was soooo good. i wish i had a camera with me, but even so, i probably wouldn't have used it. it'd feel more than a little weird to me to whip out a camera when eating in the company of other people who aren't used to that particular eccentricity. after all, i'm no food critic or photographer.

went over to katie's and they'd prepared a very french feeling lunch of baguettes and smoked salmon. spreads like butter and little bowls of toppings like lemon, capers, and minced red onions made it feel very rich despite being very simple, yet flavorful, fare. i also tried some homemade mayonaise with a hardboiled egg. i usually hate mayo with a passion, but this stuff wasn't bad fresh, made with mustard, oil, egg, and whatever else was put in. the light yellow mayo was more like a very thick creamy sauce than the fluffy oily stiff white stuff in kraft. for dessert were fresh strawberries sliced up with a little sugar and a dollop of creme fraiche. btw, i do not eat slow! i'm er, savoring!

salad and.. more gruel please?

salad tonight. bought a bag of spinach, arugula, red leaf, etc. mix. diced in some avocado, sliced a couple mushrooms, half an ear of fresh corn, some canned tuna, feta cheese, plus some crunchy shallots. dressing was lemon juice and zest, olive oil, salt, pepper. the other half of corn on the cob. the last of the onion bread. behold my lack of aesthetics!


here's some 粥 i made with dried flounder. used brown and calrose rice mixed together. messed up b/c i didn't stir frequently enough so the bottom burned a little, but salvaged it so it doesn't taste like an ashtray. topped with chinese pickled cucumbers and some green onions. seasoned with salt.

Hot Mango Relish

some onion and poppy seed covered round bread i got from the co-op toasted and accented by some mango relish. I have not one, but two jars of Patak's Mango Relish (one is mild and the other hot). Patak's jars o' stuff can usually be found in any american market with an ethnic food section, though pickled garlic and chutney are probably the only types you'll find. it took me several months to find a place that sold hot mango relish after the nearest albertson's stopped carrying it. behold my genius.. all i had to do was head on over to the DB Indian video rental and sundries market at the intersection of Prospector and Golden Springs. it's in the same plaza as the ACI institute (the SAT place) and Al Jibani Halaal middle eastern market, by the middle school. shelves and shelves of pickles, spices, and a whole bunch of other funky things.

here's what the mango relish looks like inside the jars. er.. delicious? almost to the bottom! the hot one is the drowned in red oil. oooh.. the oil.. is very tasty indeed because the salt, mustard, chile powder, fenugreek, acetic acid, and "spices" (how descriptive of the label) flavor has imbued the oil.

old and moldy posts

so i got bored and didn't feel like studying, so i finally posted some rather old things here that have been rattling around in one place or another that fit this food theme.

for clarification, i lived in dorms without stoves during 2004. had to eat in the dining halls. but i had a rice cooker, microwave, toaster oven, and an electric cooker. in 2005, i lived in campus apts, so i still had to go to dining hall, but the apt had a kitchenette as big as a closet. now i live in an off campus apt with a very big kitchen. alas, no more meal points to spend in the dining halls.

shortribs and green beans

i got really hungry. 15 mins. since i don't usually have them, here's some ACTION SHOTS!



finished product




my standard rice wine, garlic, sugar, soy and chili sauce for the green beans (got 'em at the "farmer's market" at school on tuesdays). leftover pasta. beef shortribs quick marinaded and cooked with soy, vinegar, rice wine; used 1:8:1 ratio, respectively. the green beans got some meaty flavor 'cause i cooked 'em in the same pan right after the meat. short ribs were a bit fatty, but it was a tasty fatty. and like all shortribs, lots of connective tissue = tearing apart with teeth and hands. grr, me animal. me eat more animal! just enough left over for another meal...

breakfast was eggo waffles and coffee with choco syrup. btw, those are corelle dishes. unfortunately, the "butterflies" are in LA.

the daily edition

my friend decided to go on an oatmeal diet. that lasted for 5 days, tops. and broke it with a quarter pounder and apple pie, or something like that. so for your benefit, what i ate in the last 24 hours:

stovetop oatmeal with dried cranberries
some cinnamon toast crunch cereal
little bit of liverwurst
big bowl of pasta in a hon tsuyu (soy and bonito fish flavored) broth
a powdered donut
a honey tangerine
a mc donalds ranch blt combo with fries and a coke (gasp! i ate something other than dessert at mcdonalds for the first time in months, and the third soda in the past month. it was damned tasty)

and the day before yesterday:
oatmeal with dried cranberries
coffee with a shot of peppermint syrup (soooo good!)
ONE banana chip
pasta with olive oil, garlic, cayeanne pepper
3 frozen bbq wings
pita and pesto hummus
stirfried celery
orange juice
a couple strawberry flavored egg roll biscuit things
two fried eggs
some more pasta
some lentil soup

hmm.. in hindsight.. not as much veggies and fruit as i would like.. i haven't made a trip to the market in two weeks. tomorrow would be good.

so here's the funny thing about mcD's. i was over at a friend's house playing cards and watching shows.. typical chillout, until i got really really hungry. thus the walk to the mcdonalds. it was 12:50 when we got there, and they didn't let us in because they close inside service at 1am so we had to walk through and order through the uh, drive thru. kind of funny, as there was a car in front of us, and a car behind. so i got up to the pickup window when i notice this spectacular machine inside. man.. i wish i had a camera. apparently drinks are not dispenced by hand any more. there's this cup holder carousel underneath the soda machine that looks like it fills the cups automatically with ice and the appropriate soda after pushing a button or two to queue up the next few drinks. after one's filled, it rotates and auto fills the next cup. frees up the guy to do other stuff.

dunno how i feel about that though. it's efficient and all but.. makes me think about the balance between humans and technology again. not for this specifically as for other more important interactions and tasks. i think some technology is gratuitous when there are humans to do it. and yes, even when it seems demeaning... somehow replacing a person with a thing is even more so.

something's fishy...

fish sauce. my aptmate has a mini Cock brand bottle of fish sauce (24 fl OZ flying lion brand bottle is mine. richer and less salty--cock brand sucks). The label has a seal of a rooster on it and there are squid, pompano, shrimp, and crab pictured. None present in the sauce itself, which is an extract of salt, fermented anchovies, and water. Traditionally, fish sauce is made in barrels in which layers of fish and salt are alternated, and allowed to sit around and ferment until you get this glorious salty savory brown juice. It's actually not fishy tasting and complements pork. I've seen it used watered down and mixed with other liquids as a dip, a marinade, in stews, and with braised vegetables. There's probably plenty more uses for it that I don't know about. It's more of a south asian (esp. viet and thai) sauce. on an interesting historical note, the ancient Romans also used a fermented fish sauce called "garum" which was even mixed with wine. the vietnamese name is nuoc mam. i call it yu low in cantonese. but chinese are more likely to eat and cook salted dried fish 鹹魚 than use fish sauce 魚露 jyu4 lou6 , i think. "salty fish and diced chicken fried rice" is a popular and very tasty fried rice typically found in cantonese restauraunts. it's one of my favorites. this menu for the canteen at The Chinese University of Hong Kong has a couple of dishes that use the flavorful stuff. i think dried fish is seen as a slightly lower class type of food, but some salty dried fish (whole or fillets) can be quite expensive--i've seen some selling for 30 dollars a fish!

fried egg, rice. to the right is something i was playing around with that actually turned out decent. it's canned squid sliced up and cooked up with yellow crookneck and italian squash, and bamboo shoots in a saltyish shrimp paste (it might be made with brine shrimp... which i once owned in the form of Sea Monkeys) and garlic sauce. i was thinking of those stewed seafood and vegetable dishes in flip cuisine.

realizing that the cholesterol from squid and eggs were going to do me in, i wanted to make something that wasn't so killer and discovered a burning craving for teriyaki. i'm so lame, i only wanted the sauce, but not that lame.. so there's a pitiful stirfried onion to make it a little less sad.

i was really hungry when i got home last week so i started making a fried egg... which wasn't enough, so then i fried up some rice with soy sauce, minced garlic, and chili garlic sauce... which seemed kind of ghetto, so i sliced up some chinese dried sausages and threw those in too.. but it seemed lacking so i mixed in an egg... but it needed finishing touches so i sliced in some green onions... and then remembered i had some leftover squid... then decided it needed a bit of crunchy shallots to top and.. well, i got this strange looking fried rice.

somehow, there weren't enough food groups present, so i stirfried a bunch of celery in a thai basil chili garlic sauce.

no need to stir things up: offals and otcs

i've had a bout with the flu, it's been exam time and life outside has been calling so i've been pretty busy. been on a bit of nasty food binge lately with liverwurst and cream cheese sandwiches. on toasted oat bread it's extremely rich and sufficiently liver tasting. and yes, i have bought fresh red bloody liver to make liver and onions before, and i'll do it again. and it will be here. liver, however is not my favorite offal. that belongs to ngau pong, the spongey lung-like organ one can find in the dimsum dish 牛什 ngau4 zaap6 (lit. cow miscallany) that comes sliced so that you can see the air cavities inside. but that's a story for another time.


oh, and doesn't this just sound wrong? how can you not need to stir natural peanut butter? unless it's chockfull of emulsifiers and preservatives.. it's going to settle. something is slightly off.

i get so hungry when i read any food blogs. my bland food only seems bland when there's something for me to daydream about. down gluttony!

btw, of the two roberto's taco shops on mira mesa, the one by the strip joint has better salsa and a kick ass condiments bar loaded with hot carrots and radishes. it, however, is not as good as the roberto's 2 blocks up the street which is in a less seedy plaza. the end.

bento bloggers

i am fascinated with bento lunches. i used to make lunches similar to that in HS except they were almost always ugly, and usually only had 1 or 2 "sides" to accompany rice or pasta. the bento people have waaay too much time on their hands. variety is also not an option when 4 people share one medium sized fridge. they're so pretty though... for now, i'll just look and drool. here are some american bento blogs i found, they ahve links to other bento stuff on flickr and whatnot too. not quite pokemon shaped onigiri caliber, but the devotion is evident. although i find that some probably look prettier than they taste (raw broccoli, ick). the phenomenon of online bento blogs is really amazing..

http://mito.typepad.com/photos/bento/index.html

http://mrbentorodeo.blogspot.com/

http://www.getinmybelly.org/gimbarchives/cat_bento_boxes.php

Pomona Fish Market

imagine hushpuppies, popcorn shrimp, homemade coleslaw, and fried catfish with hotsauce. now imagine the little korean lady who runs the store rushing around taking orders at lunch at the outskirts of the funky revitalized artists' district in Pomona where it starts to blend back into the general shabbiness of the surrounding city. down the street is a dilapidated electronics repair shop and some vacant storefronts.

you've never lived until you've had a fried oyster sandwich. imagine an MSG coated crunchy outside and soft oyster resting on a bed of that slightly sweet relish coleslaw in a crunchy grilled hamburger bun. it was soo tasty until i started to get a bit sick of that coleslaw(i normally hate the stuff or anything containing mayo or cream) and felt like retching from the mayo-ness of it. about half the people that went in while i was waiting ordered the catfish combo. it's obviously the favorite, so i think i'll try that next time... with the fried zuchini. i swear i liked it!

wo meiyou mayo.

midnight snack

small eats from the local korean market (DB MARKET WORLD, 21080 Golden Spring Dr, Diamond Bar, CA) and leftovers from a chinese feast with the Magic Guys (as in, the Magic the Gathering). clockwise from the upper left corner: sichuan style spicy stirfried green beans, korean sesame marinated bean sprouts, korean spicy squid, peppersalt fried cod pieces ;)

so the story about the chinese feast. in the food court of a plaza on colima and nogales (fullerton?) across from the HK supermarket... there's this not-quite restuarant not-quite fast food place that serves a lot of cantonese style food among other things. it's like a big mishmash of popular dishes. they have this great deal where you can get 3 dishes for 10.99 (at dinner!) and if you order 6 dishes, you get a tureen of complimentary soup of the day. all this stuff is family style and includes the bottomless bucket of rice that's present in a lot of southern chinese restuarants in america. note that this isn't necessarily the case everywhere as some restaurants have less wasteful carts filled with rice from which servers will dole out a bowl at a time. this style is prevalent in higher class places and was quite common in HK. anyway, the 5 us us ordered peppersalt fried rock cod, spicy stirfried geen beans, a braised vegetarian dish containing tofu beancurd and cabbage, snap peas and shrimp in a garlic sauce, and i can't quite remember the last two... i think one was a leafy green called "hollow heart vegetable" stirfried in a fermented beancurd sauce, and.. yeah, can't remember it. must not have been a tasty one. i'll fill in the chinese names for them soon when i figure out how to use the language input for windows.

i think we walked out of there completely stuffed and with leftovers for a little over $26. this meal was immensely more satisfying than lunch that day at the cheesecake factory which really isn't that good and a bit overpriced. 3 people ran a bill over $55 for two entrees and a few extras! my friend ordered a "pad thai linguine" which came out to be a pasta dish in a goopy peanut flavored sauce. no bean sprouts, fresh herbs, chillis, tomatoes, lime, any type of bite at all. just an insipid attempt at fusion food. the buffalo chicken blazers(?) tasted neither like chicken, nor spicy hot sauce and they had this weird mushy consistency b/c the meat was blended with the sauce before being formed into patties. it tasted like something from a tv dinner. some of the celery that came with that still had mud on it. i'd expect that from a hole in the wall or a cheap eats place, but not from there! the tiramisu cheese cake was pretty good. seeing as it's the cheesecake factory, they'd at least get that right. yeah, ok, you get a lot of food.. but for the quality, it's not worth it. bling is not better. too cruddy to be anything but a standard chain restaurant. yeah, that place has a big X from me.

lazy me

so i've been kind of uninspired to do anythin gover break. since The ABC does such a great job of writing about food that somehow seems very similar to what i ate (i wonder why) you can check that out. his blog is infinately more interesting. and not just food.

the ABC presents:

Chinatown Restaurant (唐人街飯店)

and some other stuff. like noodles. and stuff.

making teriyaki sauce w/o the teriyaki sauce

i've been itching to make this for a while.

~couple tablespoons of mirin (a sweetened sake), ~tablespoon or two of rice wine, ~tablespoon of soy sauce, a splash of asian chili sauce (NOT hot sauce), a small splash of rice vinegar, two cloves of garlic chopped, and a squirt of sesame oil. put raw chicken tenders in it to marinate. pan fried chicken and sauce separately. added a slurry of cornstarch and water to sauce to thicken. caution: the sugar in mirin burns, so keep adding water to the pan to deglaze/keep from burning. so far, i haven't found a way around having sweet things burn in the pan other than drowning it. it'd probably be ok with a ton of oil, but that's just ick. to thicken sauce.. add a slurry of about 1 tsp-1tbsp cornstarch with 2x times water to pan and stir stir stir until it gets thick enough. adjust concentration with water. don't use flour. cornstarch thickens things at a low heat, which is good for sugary liquids. flour doesn't start to thicken until it's "cooked", which usually means boiling temp and it's finicky and hard to judge just how much is enough b/c of that delay.
how's my non-recipe trial and error sauce taste? better than with storebought sauce like mr. yoshida brand teriyaki (by the third try). and with a kick. that stuff is no good for marinating and usually is too salty and even more full of sugar than homemade. that means it's only good for pouring over the top of food when done cooking, the flavor won't penetrate the meat, and it'll burn faster than you can say--well, fast.

dinner at that darn squirrel's house:

some very typical taiwanese foods present such as taiwanese style sausages over pineapples, congee, scrambled eggs, and some not so typical stuff like pan grilled miso marinated salmon on a bed of lettuce, spicy oil/sauce mixed noodles, congee, and pillsbury biscuits among other things. it's been years since i'd eaten anything at home cooked with pineapples, so i forgot completely about that canned commodity. will recreate. curiously enough, for cantonese ppl, congee is usually eaten for breakfast only, and usually not with a slew of side dishes like you would see in northern or taiwanese cuisine. for HKers, it's eaten like cereal at breakfast. but for them, it can be eaten like a bowl of rice at all meals. more on zuk in this post here on the ABC's site

unfortunately, no pictures of either of these as i was too lazy

someone suggested larger photos. ok.



more of the viet style noodle stuff, this time with the meatloaf. you can see the chewy pork skin bits embedded in the meat. i suppose this would be called banh-somethingortheother. i can't get enough of this stuff. plus it literally takes a minute to throw together.



also included in the meal... boiled watercress and some henry's canned split pea ham soup.



what to make for "breakfast"? it's 9am and i made super lame curry with celery and eggplant. instant curry bricks from House. hot isn't hot enough, added cayenne. also, too salty. but convenient.

Vinh Hung Supermarket

10550 Camino Ruiz
San Diego, CA 92126

a week in the life

i moved to here b/c it's muuuch easier to use and better 'cause i can link to stuff among other things. while still being free! there's no way in heck i'd ever pay for something that only i read, haha.

last week, i made this delish veggie stew. it's got lentils(double handful), carrots(2), turnips (2), garlic, onions (1), and tomatoes(1 can). it's in a tomato sauce(1)/chicken broth stock with some random herbs like savory and ginger. i'm not very good with spices. i just don't understand their subtlety. plus for the kind of food i'm used to eating and cooking.. they just don't come up very often. the stew is pretty hearty and thick. i've been eating away at it for a week now. time to throw it out.. because i'm sick of eating it!!!

er.. i made some egg noodles with oyster sauce and sesame oil. it probably would've been better with green onions.. but they don't have a very long refrigerator life. i also ate them before i could take a pic of them. so this is what was in it. prep/cook time after the water has reached boiling? 4 mins. repeat for multiple meals.

my roomate loves to fry things. she cut up some homegrown bananas, wrapped them in springroll wrappers, then fried them up. she says it's some filipino thing. i am no fan of bananas, but i'm sure it tasted good. in the corner you can see some of my frozen jung/zhongzi made circa lunar new year. i love to take these to school to eat b/c they're easy to lug around and then dispose of. and no, it's not THAT weird.

calabaza squash. or at least that's what i think they're called. a little water, garlic, salt, and butter.

no idea what they are called. the bao is filled with ground pork and hardboiled egg and the bread resembles pan de sal, but it's denser and yellower. will ask next time the checkout lady isn't so busy. these were from a filipino bakery called Christy's Bakery. it's on Mira Mesa and Blackforest b/w the 805 and the 15.

in the same plaza is the best pho place in SD. unassuming outside belies goodies within. seeing that made me hungry, so i stopped by this market on the way home and bought these goodies.

i was really excited to find this viet market (and a filipino seafood city down the street) b/c there's just no good cheap groceries at american markets like ralph's and vons. the albertsons 3 mins away has closed up and and turning into a bristol farms... a very posh market with impeccable quality for the upper class. clockwise from the jar... a jar of salty shrimp paste, a can of squid, fried shallots, a bunch of watercress, chinese eggplant, viet basil, viet meatloaf infused with pork skin and fish sauce (gio bi), and rice rolled noodles (banh cuon). to the left is this chasiu. inside the market is a cantonese siu lap and dimsum place! it looks pretty shabby, but i wanna try it out. the chasiu was v. good. they sold roast pork and duck just like here. thinking about pho cali, i prepared those noodles with cut up chasiu, shredded basil, shallots, and drizzled with a sauce made of fish sauce, sugar, water, and vinegar. needs some crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, lettuce. i don't know about authenticity, but it's damned tasty!


i like oatmeal. it's probably my favorite grain after rice. i'm not a big fan of the instant packet stuff 'cause they always turn gummy or are too watery and come it those itsy bitsy portions that don't fill you up. i like getting just regular rolled oats in bulk. it only takes 5 mins.. if the 1 minute version is just too time consuming for you. what is time consuming to make are steel cut oats. these are the grains cut into smaller chunks. bought 'em at Henry's in bulk. it took about 20-30 minutes to cook on a simmer with stirring every few minutes. they came out really creamy and have a nice chewy texture that doesn't make you feel like you're eating mush. i stirred in a little butter and added some dried cranberries as a nice lil mix-in. oh yeah, and with fried low sodium spam sans cranberries the next day... which doesn't sound nearly as pleasant.

i eat creepy crawlies and slippy slimies

one day, several months ago, i went to some spanish tapas restaurant called Picasso.. or something like that in Hillcrest. as the review goes.. service was indeed poor and some things were.. eh. the octopus in red sauce was extremely good though if my memory serves me right. anyways.. the point.. right. anyways, we ordered the baby eels (angulas), not knowing what they were at the time, to be adventurous. what came though.. resembled what cantonese call "white rice fish", also known as whitebait. "white rice fish" is pretty ambiguous.. i've seen it refered to as baby sardines, baby smelt, etc. i guess as whitebait refers to anything similar.. anything goes. if you're not familiar with it, they're kind of a ghetto food commonly eaten boiled in congee, deep fried, or cooked in omelettes. it was pretty hilarious that what the spanish thought were delicacies were this ghetto stuff i was used to eating on top of rice. or that's what i thought. now, i could be wrong.. that they did in fact serve angulae, and i was just too uncultured to notice at the time. or, they tried to foist off a cheaper substitute in hopes that no one would notice. given the watery sangria and the fact that the dishes were either really good, or duds... i think someone needs to make a visit.

here's a rather interesting food blog that featured white rice fish.

chinese food pics and recipes

i could so go for that peppersalt spareribs right now... salty duck... congee with dried fish... oil/sauce rice... grass mushrooms... hollow heart vegetable... marinated seaweed... duck gizzards... *drool* why does chinese food in SD have to suck?

http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/People/Grad_Students/huifangq/food/mijue.htm

your marie calander's frozen pasta is limp and suxxorz

1lb frozen spinach
>1lb ground beef
2-3 tbls minced garlic
splash of wine to taste. red is best. me not being old enough to buy food grade wine settled for rice. weird, but still adds nice flavor to meat.
plain ol tomato/pasta sauce
pasta

cooked spinach with half of the garlic until not frozen. [don't add water like the package says.] removed and set aside. chucked the beef in the previously used pan and added the rest of the garlic along with wine or whatever else happened to float my boat [does not recommend peppermint schnapps]. broke it up with a breakerupper [comes in forms such as spatulae, sticks, fingers if you're immune to heat] while cooking. when it turned brown and was pretyt much cooked, added the spinach back in and mixed it up. spooned out meat and veg on top of pasta, covered with sauce. consumed. should last a day or two, unless you've made it too tasty, or you don't care about the food pyramid.

shiro iro to midori (white and green)

turnips and broccoli simmered in a miso based broth. this consists of me tossing random veggies and seasonings to the pot and boiling. aka or shiro miso (red or white) will work. it just depends on your taste. aka is more fermented than shiro and tends to be stronger and saltier in taste. aka's taste is more similar to those little butter-soft cubes of chinese fermented tofu (nam3 jyu2) that smell like sewage. good stuff.
veggies, preferably cut up into small pieces to cook faster
water just enough to cover veggies
a dollop of aka (red) miso to taste (i used 1~2 tbsp)
a splash of rice vinegar, a little garlic powder, a splash of bonito flavored soy..
i bet green onions would have been good.. er you know, whatever you happen to find... then uh, cook until it's done. probably boil less than 10 mins.. my aptmate asks me all the time when i know something is done or not. somehow she doesn't seem to believe it when i tell her that i take it out a piece and try it. trial and error. oh the errors..

oh, also visible is the korean seasoned laver and rice i ate it with. finally, something healthy again.

fish food

it's what.. 7th or 8th week already?! you know you're a quarter system college student when you have no idea what the date is, but measure the time in weeks numbered 1-10. busy and unmotivated i've been.. so that means more ghetto foods that perhaps aren't so good. various combinations of pasta, cabbage, radishes, eggs were the norm last week.

and tilapia. one of my favorite fishes.. it's got a mild taste, freshwater, farm raised so don't have to feel guilty about overfishing.. and basically tastes great any way you make it. my favorite incarnation is "qing jing lap yu"/"plain steamed tilapia" you can find in canto chinese restaurants that serve "hak fan" and the like (hey! nj star isn't free anymore!). anyway, didn't feel like going all the way to 99 to buy a fish that i would have to clean etc, so i settled for a fillet i found at Henry's. usually i'd be of the mind that fillets aren't fresh enough, especially at an american market.. but.. i really wanted fish that day. so i took it home and pan grilled it 'cause i was afraid it wouldn't be fresh enough to steam. slightly fried up some green onions in hot oil and poured that over the top with some soy sauce. so cooking fish.. i have no idea how to judge when it's done other than poking at it--unless i'm steaming. kind of lame, but it's done when you can smell the cooked fish scent then add 3 mins.

lunch is almost too pathetic and gross to mention. imagine a canned corned beef sandwich with raw broccoli and celery. exactly.

the science and engineering library at ucsd also has a food science display on now.

curiously enough, the school also houses part of the American Institute of Wine and Food collection from:

Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera... dell’ arte del cucinare (1610), with its beautiful woodcuts of the Renaissance kitchen and culinary implements; Amelia Simmons’ American CookeryA House Servant’s DirectoryHow We Cook in Los Angeles (1894), with more than 600 recipes from more than 200 named Angelenos; and Acerca del chocolate (1730), a manuscript from Mexico that is an attempt to rebut the Church’s strictures against the consumption of chocolate. More contemporary works that help document the culinary history of today may also found in the collection, e.g., Piret’s: the George and Piret Munger Cookbook (1985), six cookbooks from Alice Waters’ famed Chez Panisse restaurant, and Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry Cookbook.

the only thing missing is a culinary school program here like at cal poly pomona

mun zet gua

something made a looong while ago:

mun zet gua. basically, some type of squash/melon that i don't know the name of braised in a sauce of those itty bitty dried shrimp and chicken stock. cut it up into strips, and cooked in a pot with very little liquid until it was tender. add lots of stock and it's an instant soup.

ghetto canned foods

my roomate and i both found ourselves eating some pretty ghetto food a while back. i had a can of fried dace with soy beans (typical chinese ick fare) with rice and she had vienna sausages (pride of low income americans) in fried rice, which she insisted was a not cheap-o nasty ghetto food. seeing as it's made by the same company that makes "potted meat food product" and you can't tell what type of animal it's made from just by looking at it, i found her point invalid. at 59 cents a can, that's suspect.

salty and delicious! the veggies obviously don't come with it.

yummy! Hormel website

hello there

i decided to make a standalone blog devoted to foodness. there's no rhyme or reason to the order, and i need to put old posts here too. first off, i don't think my stomach could forgive me if i didn't use my mad survival cooking skills. junk food more than once a week usually makes me feel ill and leaves my pockets empty, so i try to make my own as often as possible. that means more at the start of the quarter that gets progressively worse towards the end. i like stuff light and tend towards the reasonably healthy end. inhaling big macs or snacking on soy crisp omega-3 enhanced essential oil chips are equally gross. though once in a while it's really good..


a few nights ago, my roomate made her own tempura and it was the bomb diggity. it looked restaraunt style. instead of using a fluffy smooth batter you'd find at most places, she used a panko (japanese breadcrumb) based one so i guess it was more like zuchinni croquettes? quite crispy. she's gourmet!

this was the mango dessert i had when going out to dinner at a thai place with the aptmates. already ate dinner, so this was it... sweet sticky rice covered in a salted coconut milk sauce and fresh delicious ripe mangoes. simple, but delicious. gotta try this at home. the salt really turned what could have been a bit boring and one dimensional into a tasty treat. roomies ordered crab fried rice and pad thai. how boring. the pad thai was a bit greasy and heavy, but the crab rice was quite flavorful with actual crab meat. the larb sounded good.. but i was full... the place is Flavor Thai on convoy st. let's say i wouldn't have went there if they didn't take me. a bit americanized, but it's a nice date place, clean and good service with good prices.

my dinner from a few weeks ago. fresh shitake mushrooms in a soy based broth, 魚香茄子 (spicy sichuan style eggplant and with pork), and my very ghetto ketchup and garlic fried rice. yes... a condiment fried rice. twas tasty.

i went home for the long weekend and my bro conveniently has a gallon or two of oil left over in his turkey fryer from somewhen. since i've missed out on the fried turkey action two years running, we decided to have a frystravaganza of whatever we found lying around. battered onions, dried mangoes, a piece of chocolate candy, some raw marinated korean crab which tasted better fried, potato wedges, chicken breasts, fuji apples.. since there were also only two of us, instead of turkey we fried up cornish game hens. one was marinated in homemade teriyaki sauce, the other plain fried, and some random pieces in a paprika and chili spiced batter. teriyaki fried chicken is damned good. in this pic are the apples. they were tender and tasted like apple pie apples from marie calendars.

when i got sick last week, i found my appetite improved. i wanted meat. lots of it. so i panfried the perfect steak. note the toasty browned outside and the juicey med rare inside (looks pinker in the pick than it really was). med hi heat turning occasionally over about 14 mins for an inch thick steak is the way to go. better to have it rest to near room temp before cooking though if you don't want the outside to burn. a little garlic salt and cayanne pepper and if you cook it right there's no need for sauce.. juicey meat amino goodness. i also made this bomb veggie soup filled with carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and lil radishes in a chicken stock and crushed tomato base. canned tomato tastes and works better than fresh. oh, and i threw in a smoked ham hock for fun.

smoking

"Hydrogen cyanide forms a foul tasting compound when it combines with tobacco smoke. For this reason, some chemists choose to have a lit cigarette in their mouth while they are working with it, as they receive an early warning against possible cyanide poisoning." http://www.chemistrydaily.com

in search of sushi

san diego roads remind me of europa. there's a ton of pretty canyons around, but the problem is when the roads that crisscross them are discontinuous or blend together so you can't even tell which direction you're travelling in anymore.

japanese markets always sell their sushi half off an hour or two before closing b/c they can't sell it the next day (as opposed to ralph's nasty bastardized several day old stuff chilling out permanantly fetid unsold). earlier this night, my aptmate and i embarked on an epic journey to find half-off sushi. in typical guy fashion, i thought that i could remember my way to mitsuwa from tagging along with a friend over a month ago. from a different direction and local too. heaven forbid that my inner compass should fail. what ended up happening was that we found the nudie bar district, a harley davidson convention/gathering, several car dealerships, and a hemmorhoid laser care clinic before giving up. we ended up instead at a quiet japanese restaurant we've been to before and had dinner in high style. after all that trouble and the week's worth of problems, it felt really nice to sit down in a comfortable place away from the usual reminders of nagging assignments and just enjoy good food and be waited upon. then peaceful classical music on the way back. although we ended up spending about five times more than we were planning on and an excessive amount of time on such a short trip... it turned out oddly relaxing.

after a quick google back at home it turned out that all the time we circled around, we were ridiculously close to our destination. life is funny.

BBQ baked chicken

this is so easy i almost forgot about it. filled a baking pan with raw drumsticks. covered in bbq sauce. preheated oven to 350F and then baked chicken on middle rack for an hour to hour and 15mins.

zuchini 3x!

this is the only thing i've cooked of note in the past week.

zuchini 3 ways. 3 zuchini. first one sliced round and sauteed with garlic and ginger. second one sliced lengthwise and simmered in pasta sauce. last one sliced and boiled in tamarind shrimp broth (sinigang?) right in the microwave.

the world around me is like garlic. it always smells better than it tastes. maybe that's why i love it. why do i find myself thinking in food metaphors? it's almost as if i find it more comforting than people at times. that's probably true when there's no one around. isn't that the truth though? i'm busy in my own life. no time for those that i don't set aside time for. and those with time for me, i somehow.. don't need it. strange. i can see names of people in giant overlapping random circles on paper like a venn diagram.

marinated cucumber salad, healthy food for lazy ppl

pan-grilled korean shortribs with marinated onions, marinated cucumber salad, rice. i've been too tired, sick, and lazy to cook the past week, so mostly i've been eating horribly healthy stuff like bagels with hummus, cottage cheese, pears, cereal, frozen spinach. i totally lucked out one day at work when i found an almost empty box of veggie pizza and some salad--the remains of some catered business meeting. i'm such a scavenger i bring shame to vultures. mmm... meat is good... hmm.. scabs are not. i think i just ate one that came from a wound on my lip... eck.

liver and onions, taro root

liver and onions. i used the simplest epicurious.com recipe. though i think using some sort of wine or beer in cooking the liver would cover up a bit of the taint if the liver isn't straight off the cow. my aptmates turned visibly green when they saw me playing around with bloody squishy livers.

boiled taros

boil salted water. boil those small horse pucky-like roots of taro for about 10-15 mins. peel. consume with soy sauce.

chicharonnes and lentils

chicharonnes and lentils

2 strips of fresh chicharonnes(fried pork rinds /w meat on) from my local carniceria, cut up into little chunks (discard gratuitous fat but keep that delicious skin...)
.5 bag lentils
3 cloves garlic
a stalk or two of geen onions cut up into .5 in
1 boullion cube
optional ingredients: paprika, chilli peppers, onions, etc. etc.

washed and soaked the lentils a bit before throwing them in a pot with.. uhm.. enough water to cover by... .5-1in water. throw everything else in. boil. turn down heat a bit, cover, and cooked for... 15 mins. or something like that. great with tortillas. great for music.

teriyaki chicken and onions

3-4 boneless skinless chicken tenderloins
1 onion, sliced
for the marinade/sauce: a splash of rice wine, soy sauce, rice vinegar, a dribble of sesame oil, and a good pinch of sugar for the sauce, to taste. it's better to use mirin in place of the sugar and wine though. it's a japanese sweet alcoholic cooking wine. oh, and a smush of garlic

marinated chicken in the sauce for half an hour in the fridge covered. marinated onions seperately too. on med heat in nonstick pan, threw the onions in and cooked, covered, until tender. don't have too much sauce in the pan, b/c it night boil rather than get that saute action. shoved onions to the side of pan, and put the chicken in with medhigh heat. don't overcook chicken. i am always afraid to order it in restuarants b/c it always comes out dry. if you want to make it saucier, pour some more marinade in the center, and stir it around with a pinch of corn starch. corn starch is great b/c it thickens right away at a lower temp. flour needs to be cooked slowly at a high temp.

chilled cucumber soup and wisdom teeth

light and refreshing chilled cucumber soup

yesterday, made a soup based on the recipe on epicurious.com's chilled cucumber dill and smoked salmon soup. i cut the recipe in half and uh.. i'm too ghetto for dill and smoked salmon, so i left that out. 1 tbls butter, 1 small onion diced, 2 large cucumbers seeded and sliced lengthwise then into .5 in slices, 1 small russet potato peeled diced, 1.5 cans low sodium chicken stock, .5 cup nonfat plain yogurt. in a big heavy soup pot melted butter med heat, added onions ~3 mins to soften, added potatoes and cucumbers. cooked ~2 mins more, stirring about, then added the chicken stock. simmered covered ~25 mins, cooled a bit, then put in two batches into a blender on puree well. put back into pot, when cool, mixed with the yogurt (the recipe called for sour cream or creme fraiche, but this is just as good, and good for ya). chill in the fridge until cold then put a dollop or little swirls of more yogurt on the top of the individual bowls when ready to serve. the yogurt and the potato and butter flavor made the soup taste really creamy and rich tasting, even though i used no more than a tbls butter for the whole thing. it's good for ya even though it doesn't taste that way. from one of the taste testers, "it looks and tastes restuarant quality". the cake i made today didn't fare so well.

i'm so happy. today, i ate my first solid food. the swelling went down, and i can talk again! today, i did not lie around in pain in front of the tv half asleep. it was someone's birthday, so made a cake for him. one of my first attempts at making a cake... it didn't come out TOO bad. i won't be hurt if you end up throwing it away =) so much fun though-- just chilling with a close friend or two. it's all in the quality, and not quantity. these people are the good ones. this is as close as i'll ever get to be to being a glutton. you know little kids who eat too much and have so much fun that they start to feel sick? yup, haha.. went a bit overboard. probably shouldn't lie down now or i might force up an unpleasant combo of oreo milkshake biscuit gravy antibiotic chocolate cake goodness. ah.. finally, full. goodbye jello and congee. determined to gain back all the weight i lost this summer. in muscle! forced vacation leave isn't so bad after all. funny how the idea of "summer!" never seems to show up until you're not looking for it. !good times.

crepes

crepes

1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 1-2 eggs, a tablespoon of sugar or two for sweet crepes. mix all together in a bowl until not that lumpy. let sit at least 20 mins, and no more than a day or so (in the fridge). heat nonstick on well seasoned pan on med high until water sizzles on contact. put a lil margerine/butter to grease it up, and ladle 1-4 tbls into pan while rotating it so that the batter forms a round thin layer. cook about 30 seconds each side. flip when small bubbles form.

roasted potatoes, corn, zuchini, green beans

roasted potato slices

3 med size yukon gold potatoes sliced 1/3" to 1/2" thick. sprinkled with salt, cayenne pepper, little bit of garlic powder, and some rosemary. rubbed with olive oil. preheated oven to 425 F then broiled for 20-30 mins.

braised zuchini

1/3 cup stock, 2 tbls butter, 1 lb sliced zuchini sliced 1/4-1/3". med heat covered cooking for 4-5 mins.

irradiated corn

husked fresh corn. broke in two with fists of might and power. wrapped each half seperately in a layer or two of plastic wrap. nuke for 1 min. flip the sides so that the sides facing the center are now facing out. nuke for another min or two.

stir fried green beans

1 tsp oil in wok or large nonstick pan. a large ainsley-sized handful of green beans trimmed and halved. not so much that it is too much and impedes with cooking. or just make two batches. 1 clove garlic minced. minced ginger or some chili paste. a small splash of soy or oyster sauce. sitr. fry. if using rice wine in recipe, or if just using water and want to make a sauce, use a pinch of tapioca flour to every 2 tbls liquid in bottom of pan to make a thick glaze-type of sauce. make sure the beans are up the sides or out before that part. stir like mad to keep from clumping.

i'm taking care of Joli. she's my wok. while other people have pets, i have pots and pans. well, not really, just Joli. determined not to get another nonstick disaster, i invested in carbon steel. and so i spent the whole evening cleaning and seasoning it. she's got a beautiful patina forming around the edges, but the bottom is burned.. so sad. listen well--season your pans with animal fat, not polyunsaturated oils. poor joli. i must scrub and start over. oh man, i'm boring.

jamie's rice salad, cookie crisp, hotdogs and fresh corn

jamie made a tasty rice salad today. it had kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, some cilantro, feta, avocado, cracked pepper, vinegar, wine, and some other stuff mixed with rice. grilled eggplant sliced 1/2" thin, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt is really simple and tasty. i made a rather tasty drink the other day. albertson's fizzy canned fruit punch with a ton of crushed ice and lotsa strawberries sliced into it. no alcohol in it, but i'm sure it'd make a nice mixed drink with southern comfort or flavored vodka. or whatever alcohol ppl use for something like that. rum?

friday was soma in ramona. i haven't had chocolate cake for breakfast in years. when i was little, my mom wouldn't buy me sugar cereals like cookie crisp. so for the first time in my life, i tried some. so disappointing. it tastes like captain crunch, not cookies. good junk, good company, and that semi-desert dry that i missed so much. the scrub is just different down here. and much too humid and cool. i miss the blazing dog days of summer. i almost forgot that day we had a waterfight at claire's. can't, musn't forget. memories are a double edged sword. they take attention away from the present, but let you hold onto happiness from the past. i want to live in a semi-rural area at least once in my life. city life jsut isn't that appealing.

just got back from being lost in downtown and dropping off qqq and my two little cousins from HK at the train station. one of them is like.. dealing with an ADD macaque on speed. it reminds me of my own trip when i was their age. i was a kid once--moreso than now, of course. i'm not that far away, but still, we all know how much i love kids. no mercy. it's really weird having to make decisions for someone else. one funny thing though.. i was buying some fresh corn in the market when one of them asked what it was, and it it was cooked. they'd never seen corn still in the husk uncooked. their previous exposure was KFC. all they really wanted to do was eat hotdogs and mcdonalds. double ew. it was hard enough finding a place that sold hotdogs, rather than having to buy a pack to grill meself. it was refreshing to not be able to find a mcdonald's in downtown. my grandma sent us a suitcase filled with instant noodles. she believes that there's no food here. which i just don't understand b/c when we went over and ate out, two american kids had to explain food that they ate all the time? i don't understand.

collard greens, salty chicken, cabbage and chicken salad

collard greens

collard greens, torn up into manageable bite size pieces. 1/8 cube of chinese ham flavored powder stock, 2 tbls water, small amount of butter. dissolved the stock, dumped in the veggies at med high heat. done in about 3 mins, turning to keep from burning. i bet it tastes better with real ham. some brown sugar too.

yim shui gai (salty water chicken)

petty standard chinese chicken dish. enough chicken drumsticks to half fill a pot. but before putting them in, boil half a pot of water.. mines was... maybe .75 liters? whatever. 3 tablespoons of salt. optional half inch of fresh ginger, smushed to release flavor better. high heat. when the water boils, put in the chicken. big drumsticks took me about 15 mins of cooking. turn off heat, let sit.. don't drink the water. if hte meat doesn't have enough flavor, add more salt and let sit longer chilled, or stick the pot int he fridge overnight like i did... i made a dipping sauce for it with a stalk of green onion and tiny bit of ginger finely finely chopped sprinkled with some salt. put 3 tbls of vegetable oil and a few drops of sesame into a pan on high and quickly "cooked" it for about 15 seconds. done.

cabbage and chicken salad

1/3 of a small cabbage chopped or sliced into 1/2 inch by 2 inch ribbons. roughly. put into a pan on high wihout oil after it got hot. stiryfry it to keep it from burning. cook just barely, maybe a minute that way to get rid of the raw taste and bring out the sweetness without making it limp. took it off the heat and transferred to a bowl. made a dressing with 2 tsp ponzu sauce, a small sprinkle of sugar, a few drops of vinegar, a clove of garlic finely chopped, and maybe a tsp of water and boiled that in the pot that previously held cabbage to mainly cook some of the spicyness out of the garlic. about a minute. pour over cabbage and toss. took a drumstick from the previous dish the night before and shredded it over the cabbage. serve cold. very darn tasty. i'm sure it'd be even better if i had some sesame seeds to put in it.

standard vegetable soup

vegetable soup

this is so much tastier than campbell's soup. 1 can plain chicken broth. 3/4 can Hunt's Diced tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, basil and olive oil (it was on sale. regular canned tomatoes, whole diced or stewed will work fine.). 1 can water. 1/2 small cabbage, cubed into 1''x1''. half an onion, cubed. 1 large zuchini cubed. 2 cloves garlic. Boil until veggies are cooked. Maybe 10 mins? Basically, as long as you have the 3 cans of soup base ingredients, any veggies will work fine. toss in some sausage or meat is good too. or noodles. or brown rice.

ground beef patties

1/2 lb ground beef. 1/8-1/4 onion diced fine. garlic salt. smush it all together. form into patties, large or small. cook throughly. when the first side starts to turn brown at the edges, flip it over in the pan. it might look nice to be all dark brown and charred looking, but it's rather dry and bad tasting by that time, so don't bother going for the chargrilled look. when they were done, i used the extra onions that were diced, a clove of garlic, a few tablespoons of my soup, some butter, and a pinch of flour to make a sauce. carmelize the onions in butter, then add the other ingredients stirring to make sure there's no clumps.

and of course, the ubiquitous rice.

*july 4th*

i made the same hamburger to grill today, but used soy sauce, onions, fresh garlic and that asian rooster brand chili sauce instead. had quite a bit of kick.

beef and onion stirfry

so i realized that i'd defrosted some unknown meat a day or so earlier so after coming back from burnout and ready to go to sleep, i had to cook it b/c i was afraid it'd go bad. defrosted meats only keep for like 2 days. less if pork or chicken. found out it was like a 3x4x1 in steak. surprise. a high caliber midnight snack. or tomorrow's lunch...

beef and onion stirfry

1 tbls wine
1-2 tbls soy sauce (or 1worcestershire:1soy)
.5tsp flour (corn starch works better)
half an onion that's been hiding
1 tbls minced garlic
1 tsp sesame oil

cut into thin strips across the grain-- that helps it stay tender and keeps the muscle fibers from contracting up all tough when you cook it.mix everything all up and let marinate for 5 mins. heat on high. dump in, and stiryfry it around until it's good and done--but not too much so it's tender. after it all browns, some blood will ooze out as the insides cook, so it should be ready shortly after that. quite savory, but some zing is missing though... shoulda used a lil bit of citrus.

celery stir fry (a few days ago)

5 stalks celery sliced diagonally half in wide
2 cloves garlic smushed
1 tsp rice wine
~50 ml of this tasty seasoned (w/o salt) chicken broth from henry's. swanson's or kimbo will work too (used the rest to reboil with some leftover brown rice for a light soup)

stiryfry on high or med high. always. should be crisp but slightly translucent when done. usually until the broth is alost all sucked up or reduced. the remainder of that can of broth was used to reboil some leftover brown rice into a thin soup/gruel for the other half of the meal. light and healthy.

birthday corndog cake

so i wanted to bake a birthday cake for a friend, and i didn't have cake batter.. don't usually bake, but i did have some cornbread mix...

all in one jiffy cornbread hotdog bake. i don't really understand why hotdogs and cornbread sounds gross to people(though i don't like hotdogs much.. i have 'em in excess though =(. i thought that those two, and baked beans, were traditional camp food for ease of cooking. am i an adventurous fooder, or are people now just more picky? that also brings to mind a cook book i found at home. it was printed in the 70s and in it was a recipe similar to my own, in addition to other wonderful delights such as sweetbreads, brains, and stuffed beefhearts. ah.. the good old days when not a bit of animal was wasted. thank goodness i wasn't alive then. some things are tasty, and some are not. actually, i like chicken hearts, gizzards (best ones at Donahue's Golden Fried Chicken in Pomona--hell yeah, a real fried chicken joint) and liver quite a bit, and small intestine isn't bad if prepared the way i like it. but i'm not a fan of large intestine or brains. but i hear brains are still popular in the south. if i were a rich girl sha-na-na-na-na-na... *ahem* and i could choose something fun to study, it'd be the food history. or something like that. so i would like to think-- i'd probably wander back here...

1 package jiffy cornbread mix (1 egg, 1/3 cup milk req.)
2 hotdogs

made cornbread as per instructions on box. cut up hotdogs lengthwise and lined edges of pan with them. pour in batter. bake. done. and guess what? it's highly edible. why shouldn't it?

brown rice and jarred indian hot mango relish.

curry, lap mei fan

veggie tofu beef curry, mild

component A
2 tbls garlic minced
red chili flakes
1 tbls rice wine
1 tablespoon soy sauce
.5 lb ground beef 7% lean
1 tsp sesame oil

component B
3-4 celery stalks
1/2 large onion
quarter cabbage .5-1 in chopped
green onions, chopped

component C
1 block S&B instant curry mix

1 block tofu, anytype (i used soft so it got all mushed up)

it that looks just a little bit strange with tofu and all, you caught me. i was going to make mabo tofu until i foudn that my sauce packet expired... anyway, cooked component A on med high heat until _just_ browned, but not too done. stir it around and break it into small clumps. smells good huh? that'd be a dish in itself to go with rice but.. onwards! move component A into another bowl at that point, and add component B into the same pot, in the order listed, one minute apart. if it starts to burn, turn down heat to med, add some water. stir. cover so it doesn't dry out. simmahd for maybe.. 5-8 mins(?) until it was tender. while that was going, took component C and placed in a ricebowl full of water, microwaved to get it soft. when the veggies were done, dumped in the tofu, the beef, and the curry sauce. mix mix. turn off heat when it boils again. enough to last 3-4 meals, esp tasty with rice... even.. lap mei fan. ittadakemasu!


lap mei fan = assorted dried meats rice

2 chinese dried sausages, liver, or savory, or sweet, whatever.
1 dried salted duck leg
2 cups rice, 3 cups water

washed rice, placed in rice cooker. added extra water. about a 1.5H2O / 1 rice ratio instead of 1.25. the dried stuff takes up a lot of water. place a wire steamer on top, or just toss stuff in the rice. doesn't matter, more flavorful that way anyways. rinse sausages, duck, cut fat and skin from the duck leg, toss in rice cooker... cover and push the button.. duh.

so anyone wondering how the rice cooker magically knows when your rice or food is ready? ok, since i'm the only one interested: there's a thermal sensor inside the bottom of the cooker, the thing on the spring. when water is still in the pot, the after it heats up inititally, the temperature remains constant, when it undergoes a phase change from liquid to gas (@100 C and 4.184 kJ/kg). when all the water has either turned to steam or absorbed into your food, the temperature inside rises again rapidly and when the sensor registers the change, it turns off the cooker. simple application of thermochemistry.. yay.

the flavor packet is optional, shitake mushroom broth

shitake mushroom broth - this is by far the tastiest shitake mushroom thing i've made so far...

10 shrooms whole, washed, stems cut off.
~ .5 inch cube of fresh ginger sliced up real thin
~1.5 inches green/spring onion sliced up
2 tbls soy sauce
1-2 tsp rice wine
~ .5 tsp rice vinegar
pinch of sugar

dump the ginger, soy sauce, wine, vinegar into a pot with 2-3 cups water. boil. add in the mushrooms and *gently* boil for 4-5 mins. put on top after you turn off the heat. that's it. it comes out a bit light, with the mushroom flavor in it... instant ramen plain kind of sucks ( instant ramen is really oily and forms a kind of scum if you let it sit w/ the same scummy water you boiled it in...) so i boiled it seperately and drained it before pouring the broth and shrooms over it. i don't know why, but i've had 3 ppl in the last week ask me if it was ok to make ramen without the flavor packet??? NO, THE RAMEN WILL BE RUINED AND POISON YOU. =P is it just me that thinks that's slightly bizarre? it always made sense to me to make the noodles first and then add the flavor later to taste in the bowl instead of guesstimating.. oh man, i'm really avoiding work, talking about making noodles.. =P

steak, brussels sprouts, onigiri

dinner was steak, brussel sprouts, rice:
preheated toaster oven to 425 on broil setting. broil means placing the meat on the first or second rack closest to the heat, which is coming from the top on broil setting. sprinkled on savory, cayyeanne pepper, garlic salt on both sides. broiled for 10 mins on one side, flipped tot he other side and did anohter 10 mins for medium rare on a 1 inch thick steak. when it's done, take it out, and let it rest for 5 mins so the tasty tasty juices don't all run out when you cut into it. at the same time, boiled up some water and follow instructions on frozen brussel sprout package. made rice, and covered that with some jarred indian garlic relish. actually, make the rice first. it takes the longest. if no likee garlic salt and junk, marinate in ponzu(a light citrus soy) sauce for half hour before broil instead.
*put it on the highest rack and broil for 6 mins each side for rare

brussel sprouts are tasty. aside from the slightly mushy texture, they taste like a cross between broccoli and cabbage. they're actually related to the broccoli and the mustard family...

lunch a few days ago - spicy squid onigiri (japanese style rice balls)
1.5 cups cooked calrose rice mixed with some instant vinegar sushi seasoning. distribute evenly in two lumps on 2 separate sheets of dried nori seaweed. julliene up half a pickling cucumber and spread that between the two. got some spicy semi-dried prepared squid from your local DB Marketworld or other korean market and put some on. wrap it up like a package and seal the seaweed with a little bit of rice vinegar or water. portable lunch perfect for those days i have 4 hours straight of class. actually, ANY stuffing + rice works well... ham.. carrots.. pickled vegetables..

the basix

i'm taking a break to kill time. i've noticed a lot of my friends don't know how to cook, and since a bunch of ppl are A) getting sick of dorm food or B) moving out into their own apts soon, i guess i may as well put down recipes of whatever i make, provided i remember how i made them. i uh.. don't own any measuring utensils except a cup. oh, and a shot glass.. therefore, it'll all be approximations. can you imagine eating instant ramen and frozen burritos for a week? usually what i make is sustenance fare. cheap and simple.. and to taste.

the most important staple.. RICE. get a rice cooker, calrose rice is usually 1 cup rice to 1.25 cups water.

what i'm eating right now: baked potato
wrap washed potato in plastic wrap, microwave for ~4-5 mins. sauce made by melting in microwave with one pat of butter (courtesy of the DC), some basil, cayanne pepper, garlic.

dinner: sauteed shitake mushrooms
heated pan to medium setting. put 6-8 mushrooms in with some minced garlic for about 1 min. drying out, added a mixture of 1 tsp rice wine, some chopped green onion, 3tsp water, 1 tbls oyster sauce, 1 tsp soy sauce. you can add a pinch of cornstarch to the liquids BEFORE adding it to the pan to make the sauce thicker. cook a few more mins until water is gone.. 3 maybe?

how to make a canned soup taste more like real soup:
add twice as much water, or 1 can if it's "ready to serve". cut up carrots, celery, potatoes, whatever veggies and toss into pot. boil. consume.

adding crap to plain pasta to make it taste good:
cook pasta like usual. at the same time in another small pot, add 1-2 tbls olive oil, half an onion diced, a few cloves of garlic chopped up, half a pound of ground beef, .25-.5 tsp cayeanne pepper, a zuchini if you want your veggies, and cook it up on med-high until the beef is barely cooked. at that point, turn the heat down a little bit and pour in half a jar of pasta sauce. when it's hot and simmering, it's done and scoop over pasta. too ghetto for ground beef? chop up a few slices of ham or pepperoni.

bean and smoked ham soup:
i made this a while ago, so i'm not sure i remember right, but it's damn tasty and will feed your for a few days. wash 1 lb anytype beans, boil with ~2 quarts water for half an hour. add 1-2 smoked ham hocks, clove garlic, 1 onion chopped, add 2 stalks celery chopped, 1 carrot chopped, half to whole 8oz can of tomato paste. some pepper if you like SPICY! simmer (gentle gentle boil) hour and a half. really easy to make 'cause unlike lab, you don't have to sit around and watch it boil.

ponzu portobello

sat night - panbroiled steak, sauteed napa, rice

tonight - portobello mushroom sauteed in garlic-ponzu(citrus vinegar/soysauce)-rice wine sauce, chasiu, rice

usually it's rice and pickled vegetables. yay for weekends. sometimes i loathe summit. thank God i can cook