Burp and Slurp

Hello, Goodbye!

2010-01-18T19:06:00.001-08:00

Hey! If you’re on this blog right now, sorry. Most likely, I commented on your blog but your comment box would not let me sign in on my own domain.

So please hop on over to my new blog,

Burpandslurp.com !

:-)

Switching allegiance to the other side...

2009-03-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

I HAVE SWITCHED HOUSES!!

Yes, indeedy, I have finally given in and abandoned Blogger for Wordpress...

Click here for my new website address, and please remember to add the new URL to your blogroll!

The Yin and Yang of it all

2009-03-23T05:24:00.003-07:00

I’ve noticed a trend in my lunches. I always have an eggy dish one day, then grains/beans the next. Egg, pilaf, egg, pilaf. But I’ve still managed to avoid any repetitious dishes, thanks to the versatility of eggs and my “Mix-it-up” bowl. Though I use the same base ingredients and method, the result is always something fresh, innovative, and different. I’m interested to see how many different variations “Mix-it-up” bowls I can come up with. So far, I’ve come up with five:

Barley alla Carbonara
Beans-and-Squash Barley Pilaf with Coconut
Cheesy BBQ Pilaf
“Hawaiian Pizza” Pilaf
Yin-Yang Pilaf (today’s lunch, more on this later)

I’ve still got a whole list of other variations I want to try, so you can expect to see more of this in the upcoming future! I wonder if I can get up to more than 50 variations. Hmm…Anyone have any creative suggestions of their own?

So anyway, following this unintended trend of egg/pilaf cycle, I had eggs for lunch yesterday. I had lunch out with Jingwen, and of course we chose our favorite, Shokudo. And, obviously, I just had to order my favorite dish, the Japanese omelet. Excuse me for being boring and sticking to the same thing, but it is so good! I do switch up on the fillings, though. This time I chose sakura ebi, which is tiny dried shrimps.

To make up for my boring, repetitious dish, I took pictures of the steps to making a good Japanese omelet:

First, start off with a well-oiled square pan…

Ladle in the egg mixture (which is seasoned with dashi broth and sugar)…

Once slightly cooked, roll it up to the corner…

Then ladle in another layer of egg mixture with chosen filling…

My filling that day was sakura ebi…
When the second egg layer is cooked, roll it up over the first egg roll…

And ta-da! The finished product, drizzled with okonomiyaki sauce and mayo, and sprinkled with bonito flakes.

Unfortunately, the guy cooking this was cooking two omelets at the same time…

So he failed to devote 100% of his efforts and attention to my omelet, as he should. My omelet, instead of being cooked just right to a soft, creamy texture, was overcooked to crispy dryness. Bad. But the worse thing is that this guy was stingy!! There were barely any shrimp in my omelet, and the amount of toppings on it was miserable. Argh! I hate stingy cooks! Cooks should never, ever be stingy with their food! He was a tall, wiry guy, so maybe what they say about never trusting a skinny chef is true…But wait, I am skinny myself. But then, I don’t call myself a chef. Anyway, as you can see, my omelet this time was infuriatingly unsatisfactory. I still ate it, albeit with a disgruntled scowl like this: >:-(

To prove my point, this was the piece with the most sakura ebi I could find:

How disappointing. What an anorexic lunch. Boo hoo.

Jingwen ordered the omu-rice (fried rice in omelet), which was so much better than mine. I stole a few bites:

But thankfully, to make up for yesterday’s disappointing lunch, today’s lunch was freaking amazing! As mentioned above, I came up with another variation of my “Mix-it-up” bowl. This time the combinations were really interesting, “complicated”, and fun. Here’s what went into this bowl:

Yin-Yang Pilaf

The base: 1 cup cooked pearl barley

The mix-ins: 1/4 cup black beans and 1/2 cup chopped roasted winter squash
The dressing: The leftover marinade I used for my roasted veggies with a dash of cinnamon (see below for ingredients)
The topping: Roasted, marinated vegetables, fresh raw cucumbers, dollop of garlic cream cheese, dollop of homemade spicy almond sauce (be patient, recipe follows soon!)

I marinated chopped eggplant, green bell pepper, and tomatoes with this marinade mixture: soy sauce, sake, maple syrup, fish sauce, salt and pepper. Then I popped them into a 400 degree oven to roast for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, I whipped up my spicy almond sauce:

- 4 tablespoons roasted almonds
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon homemade ketchup
- 1 small de-seeded bird-eye chili
- 2 tablespoons blackcurrant preserves
- 3 tablespoons water
- 3 tablespoons almond milk with drop of coconut extract (my last-minute substitution for coconut milk)
- 1 tablespoon sweetener
- salt and pepper

Phew! Sounds like a lot, but it really was very fast and simple! I just dumped all of it into my mini-blender and liquidized the whole thing. Then I stir-fried my barley/black bean/winter squash pilaf with onions and garlic in the marinade with cinnamon, and once it was done, dumped the contents into a bowl, and topped it off with the roasted marinated veggies, a sliced cucumber, cream cheese, and the spicy almond sauce. Voila~!

Now can you guess why I’m calling this bowl Yin-Yang Pilaf? What a myriad of tastes and textures!

Here’s the yin:

Cool, refreshing, crunchy cucumbers with tangy garlic cream cheese, soothing and mellow on the palate…

And then there’s the yang:

Spicy, complicated, intricate tastes and textures. We’ve got the smoky, bold flavor of the marinated vegetables, and the spicy, nutty kick of the almond sauce. Stimulating and warm on the palate…

The spicy almond sauce was seriously freaking amazing. I modeled this after a peanut dressing recipe, and am loving the almonds much more. It has that buttery, roasty flavor, with a hint of coconut, and the kick from the chili. Perfect blend, if I say so myself. I have a bit left over that I am excited to try on other stuff. Any suggestions?

I know this might seem like a mess of contrasting flavors in this bowl, but just like yin yang symbol, the whole dish was quite harmonized and well-balanced.

I ate half of this bowl tentatively, scooping up the contents with just bits of the sauce…

But then ended up just mixing the whole thing together like this:

It was way better eaten this way. Yum!

So, have I converted anyone yet? You’ve got to try this “Mix-it-up” bowl concept for yourself! If you ever do create something using this basic recipe, please let me know, and I’ll feature it on my blog.

Now, since we’re on the subject of yin and yang, today’s question is: Are you a yin or a yang personality? According to Wikipedia, Yin is black, female, receptive, yielding, negative, and nurturing. It is associated with night, valleys, rivers, streams, water, metal, and earth. Yang is white, male, active, dominating, positive, and initiating/creating. Yang is associated with day, mountains, hills, fire, wood, and air.

I am quite definitely a yang. I like leadership, I like being in control, and am active and outspoken in my opinions and thoughts. But I have a bit of yin inside me too, I guess, as I can be a pretty pessimistic person. I’m trying to change this about myself, as well as learning to be more relaxed and not so domineering.

So, what about you? Are you a yin or a yang personality? I’d love to know!

A baking throw-down, Q&A, and unauthentic Middle-eastern cuisine…

2009-03-21T06:39:00.001-07:00

Wow. I’m in tears. Really. My (tiny Asian) eyes are glistening with grateful emotion. Thank you so much for your amazing, kind, encouraging comments to my last post. They mean so much to me, and have strengthened my resolve to overcome this sickening disease and pursue my dream. Being able to go back to college means so much to me, because I love learning new things and studying. I’m an uber-nerd that way. Heh. But seriously, I just want to forward all your comments to the admission-decision committee of USC and say, “Come on, now. How can you not accept me? Are you really gonna disappoint all these incredible girls out there?” Bet that will work! Hahahahahaha!

A-hem. Anyway, I’m still joyfully chomping my way through recovery. Delicious eats, and a fear food faced and conquered! Are you ready? Here we go…

Lunch yesterday was another variation of my soufflé-omelet…

Can you guess what’s inside this fluffy blanket?

I was meaning to try a sweet version of this, but suddenly I had a real craving for something cheesy, so I went all cheesy-crazy. I whipped up my soufflé-omelet just like before, but for the filling I used roasted butternut squash and four kinds of cheeses: bleu cheese, Parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, and cucumber-garlic cream cheese to make a Four-cheese-butternut squash Soufflé-Omelet:

Oh, heaven. How can you ever go wrong with cheese?

I did not measure, but I used about 2 tablespoonfuls of Parmesan, a fistful of cheddar, a tablespoon of bleu, and 3 tablespoonfuls of cream cheese.

I was afraid the flavor of the cheeses would all mesh together into one incoherent, unidentifiable mess, but I could actually detect each distinctive taste and texture…

There’s the tangy creaminess of the cream cheese…

And the stringy, sharpness of the cheddar…

Every bite was amazing. The roasted butternut squash gave a nice smoky, mellow sweetness to the omelet that was perfect with the blend of cheeses.

I had church youth group that night, so I had to pack up my dinner. Along with my usual 12 mini chicken hotdogs, I tried out a new sandwich combo. Do you remember my Poop-in-poop-out? This is how it looks like:

You can click here for the recipe, but it’s basically a chocolaty blend of black beans, pumpkin, and cocoa. I paired this poopy (but so delicious)puree with sliced green apples on two slices of whole wheat bread:

And of course sandwiches tastes best toasted like this:

Check out the filling! It was torture restraining myself from gobbling this up right there and then!

’Twas a poopilicious dinner ^______^. Youth group ended late till midnight, and I was just too pooped out to blog…

Well, that brings us to today, Saturday! Those who have followed my blog continuously should know that Liwen, Wengang (the couple who are hosting me) and I have lunch out together every Saturday. Today we went to a place nearby called Istanbul Gourmet. As the name indicates, it’s a Middle-eastern restaurant. Can you believe I’ve never really tried Middle-eastern food before? Unfortunately, we chose the wrong place for my first taste of Middle-eastern cuisine. Istanbul Gourmet was definitely…not gourmet. It was small and the prices were too cheap to be able to serve great food.

I ordered the Chicken Kebabs and Yellow Rice on Bean Salad:

The chicken…tasted like fried chicken. I’ve never tried chicken kebabs before, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to have chunks of crispy bits in kebabs. They came shredded over a bed of bean salad with some kind of sweet chili sauce drizzled all over.

The yellow rice…

Meh. I hate rice, but had decided to challenge myself with this dish. Besides, I thought it wouldn’t be so bad as it is yellow and had other mix-ins like herbs, turmeric,raisins and chickpeas. But it was so bland! Looks are deceiving. But at least I faced my fear food and I still forced myself to choke them down.

Liwen ordered the Istanbul laksa:

Yeah, this is so totally not Middle-eastern at all. Laksa is a Singaporean noodle dish based of a coconut-curry soup. The only thing “Middle-eastern” about this was the chicken kebabs they used in the soup. I thought it was just sub-standard. Not a huge fan of coconut-based laksa.

Wengang ordered the Beef Bomb, which was marinated beef stuffed with hard-boiled egg on salad and a side of potatoes:

Again, I can’t see anything authentically Middle-eastern about this dish. The beef was pretty tough and stringy.

Damn, my first experience with Middle-eastern cuisine, and we had to pick a lousy unauthentic place. It’s like going to Taco Bell to try my first “Mexican” fare. Or calling sweet-and-sour chicken and fortune cookies “Chinese” cuisine.

But that’s okay, because we had a lovely time together, and that’s what matters. But still, I hope to give Middle-eastern cuisine another chance once I return to the States. What do you guys recommend? (Except hummus…Please don’t kill me, but I really don’t see what’s so great about hummus)

Bad Middle-eastern food aside, I got some baking done for my friend Mei-er, who’s birthday is on March 22nd~! I made sure to take pictures of it...Yup, Morgan, these pictures are especially for you! Consider this my first baking challenge to you! Check this out:

My Chocolate-Pumpkin Swirl Brownie Cheesecake!!!!

Take a hunk of that! (The knife is for dramatic effect) Can you beat that chunk of drool-worthy baby? Put on those baking mittens, girl, because the baking throw-down is ON!

As the Iron Chef chairman says, ”ALLEZ CUISINE!!!!” *Takes a chomp on a ~~bell pepper~~ muffin and grins ~~lecherously~~ challengingly*

Um, just to make sure. That’s not me.

Right. Before I scurry away, here’s a mini-mini-mini Q&A section in response to the last post’s question of the day! LOL, are you guys shy to ask questions? But anyway, hear are the questions that were asked by these lovely fellow bloggers [with a bit of my add-ins in these brackets ;-)]:

Emily and Kiki asks:

Do you have recipe for that [freaking amazing oh-my-god you’re such an amazing baker] brownie?

My answer:

Those brownies were actually just leftover batter from my chocolate-pumpkin swirl cheesecake brownies (see above for the fabbity fab fab pic), which I plopped into a muffin tin to bake. I sort of “made-up” this concoction by mixing-and-matching several recipes, but here’s the basic recipe for the brownie bottom:

6 oz unsweetened chocolate
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs plus 5 large egg yolks
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla
1 cup chopped almonds

To make the brownies:

1. In the top of a double boiler over simmering, not boiling water, melt the chocolate and the butter, stirring to combine. Set aside to cool to warm.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla until smooth.

4. Pour the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and combine with a whisk. Add the flour mixture and almonds to the chocolate/egg mixture and stir until just combined. Pour the brownie batter into muffin tins. You can pour all the way, because you don’t need to worry about the batter rising too much.
5. Bake for about 40 minutes in a 325 degrees. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

I adapted this recipe from here, and used a lot more egg yolks so that the batter will be a bit drier and more like a cookie so it’ll keep it’s shape better. If you want my added recipe for the chocolate-pumpkin swirl cheesecake topping, just ask.

Noodlegirl asks:

Hey the sushi looks yum just out of curiosity, I noticed you use pearled barley on most of your stuff in place of rice. I have never tired it before and intend to ask what is the reasoning behind it, if you don't mind me asking, just so curious…

My answer:

Of course I don’t mind you asking! Ask away!

I have mentioned this a few times, and will probably mention it over again many more times, but I absolutely hate, detest, abhor, loathe rice! I’m so not Asian in that way. But I like pearled barley. I actually only just discovered this, and have fallen in love with its plump, chewy texture. Plus, it has way more nutrients, fiber, and protein than plain ol’ rice. I hope you give this grain a chance, it’s awesome! And if you come across any great barley recipe, share the wealth!

Yasmin asks:

Where have you always wanted to travel to?

My answer:

Wow. Where to start? First of all, traveling is my dream and I really hope to be able to touch all corners of the Earth before I’m dead. That said, one of the top things on my to-do list of “Things I wanna do before I DIE” is to backpack all across Europe. I also want to go to China, but just to immerse myself in the language and culture there and perfect my Chinese. Anybody wanna join me?

Heather McD and Emily asks:

[You crazy girl!] How can you not like avocadoes?

My answer:

I know this sounds like blasphemy to a lot of you guacamole and avocado-lovers out there, but there’s just something about avocadoes that turn me off. Probably their creamy, mushy consistency. I like food with texture, food that I can chew and bite. I don’t really like mushy stuff, which is another reason why I also do did not like tofu. But! I am willing to give avocadoes another try…Suggestions on recipes with avocadoes, anyone?

And lastly, Ellie asks:

When are you coming to the UK to teach me to cook? Kidding. Seriously though- do you like traveling? if you could go live anywhere, where would it be?

My answer:

Hey girl, if you could fork up at least half the amount for the plane fare, I will hop onto the nearest plane and live in your kitchen! Haha! But yes, as I mentioned above, I love traveling. But if I could live anywhere, I’d have to say southern California. I’m a girl who loves the sunshine and freezes her skinny ass off in the slightest chill, so the sunshine state it is for me! And I heard that west coast people are more laid-back than the crazy ambitious east coast peeps, so that’s good for me because I need to learn to relax. It’s one of the reason I applied to USC (that and it has a pretty good journalism program).

Hee hee! I like this Q&A thingy! I’ll probably give this another try some time, but hopefully more of you will ask questions the next time! But I’m sure you’ve had enough of me for one day, so here’s today’s question for you: What is the least authentic ethnic food you’ve ever tried? For me, I’ll have to say every single item on a Chinese take-out menu in America. I seriously can’t stand the “Chinese” food they serve…way too greasy and sweet!

Oh, by the way, I found this random quote that really tickled me:

"I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond. "~ Mae West

Tee hee! Wise words, eh? I certainly should learn a little from this smart, insightful woman!

Okay, I’m off now. Have an awesome weekend, everyone, and please indulge me by answering my question!

P.S. By the way, Donna from My Tasty Treasures is having a food magazine giveaway! THREE, actually! As a hoarder of foodie magazines and cookbooks, I'm thrilled!

I have a dream…

2009-03-19T08:23:00.001-07:00

I remember writing my first article ever to be printed in hard copy when I was a junior in high school. I had just joined the school newspaper staff, and was assigned my first article ever: to review a local Japanese sushi restaurant. It was nothing much, just a small section in the entertainment section, and the contents were barely impressive; just your basic amateur reviewer heaping glowing raves because she is just so ecstatic to have her name printed and has yet to master the art of true criticism.

I progressed from there on, being promoted from staff writer to entertainment editor, and writing many more articles other than restaurant reviews. Even so, I still loved writing reviews most, and tried to grab any chance I could get on writing any review articles, be it food, music, movies, or books.

Another type of writing I loved most was features. I loved interviewing people, talking to them and listening to them talk, digesting the bits and bites of their personal details to form a full, organized picture of their story to the readers.

It was from this stint in my school newspaper that I eventually decided what I wanted to do the most was to interact with people, to write about them, and to experience and observe all sorts of things to share my opinion and thoughts on them. So, I chose to be a journalist. That is my goal, my passion. My plan was to graduate with a degree in magazine journalism in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, then find a prestigious internship at some magazine company, then get my masters degree at Columbia University. Big plans, great dreams.

Then anorexia struck. Long story short: I got into Northwestern with a full scholarship, but got hospitalized and was sent back home just a month later. I gained some weight and tried to return to school, but they required me to have proof of treatment at an eating disorder residence, which I refused (and had no money for). I reapplied to other schools, and got into University of Southern California. But before I could actually attend, I relapsed and had to postpone my enrollment to Spring semester. Spring rolled by, but I had barely gained any weight; in fact, I lost even more. So I asked permission for another delay…and that brings me to now, where I am still waiting for their decision. It is highly probable that they will say no, as I am being re-evaluated among all the other freshmen. Thing is, I am no longer “fresh.” I am almost 22 years old; it’s been more 3 years since I last touched a textbook.

Meanwhile, I am still…still trying to recover. At this weight, even if the school re-admitted me, I would not be able to attend. It’s a sobering, terrifying thought, one that grips me with icy fear and panic. Will I make it? Will I ever be able to fulfill my dreams to be a great journalist?

As I pray to God about this, He comforts me. He opens my eyes to discover that I don’t need a college degree to become a good journalist. Hell, I’m getting all the training I can get right now with all the experiences He has provided me. I give thanks to Him for letting me discover the blogging community. While blogging I practice my writing skills so they don’t go rusty, while meeting many incredible people and reading their stories and their own struggles.

Most of all, I have discovered the power of the internet. Gone are the days of newspapers, magazines, even radio and broadcast. Now is the age of the wireless, of the citizen writer. Everyone can be a journalist now. Writing and sharing online is even more interactive, efficient, and rewarding. Thus I have switched my choice of major from magazine journalism to online journalism.

If I ever get into college, that is. Which is one of the reason I’m still clinging and fighting. I have a passion, God gave me that passion, and I am going to fulfill that passion, damn it!

So it is in that spirit that I made today’s lunch: in memory of my first article ever to be printed about sushi (albeit in a crappy high school newspaper), I present to you: “I’m going to California” roll.

It’s called that because it’s has most of the components of a California roll: crabmeat (imitation), carrots, cucumbers. And because so help me God, I am going to USC (University of Southern California)!!!! The only thing that’s missing though, is avocado, which I left out because 1) It’s expensive and I am mega-broke, and 2) I dislike avocadoes. Always have. Love the color, hate the texture and blandness.

I made two rolls. Both had a crabmeat salad, carrots, and cucumbers, but one had pearled barley as the base and the other had the roasted winter squash.

Here are the ingredients that went into the crabmeat salad:imitation crabmeat, plain yogurt, cucumber-garlic cheese spread, salt and pepper.

For the sushi barley “rice”: pearled barley, splash of vinegar, sweetener, salt.

Sorry, no exact measurements, I just taste-and-tested as I went.

It’s amazing how clean and fresh these tasted even though made mainly from leftovers.

Heh heh. These are the “Rejects” that were too ugly to make it into the previous picture. Don’t worry, they still got “first place” in my stomach. I ate them up first.

Here’s a close-up of the one with the barley:

And another one of the roasted winter squash:

One fat roll having a nice bath in soy sauce:

I think I liked the one with roasted squash more, but the barley one had great chewy texture.

The colors are so bright and cheery, I decided to go with a more somber tone with this one to match my above story…

One of the perks of not being in college? Lots of free time to bake! I was baking chocolate-pumpkin swirl cheesecake brownie for a friend’s b-day, and had some leftover brownie batter which I popped into a muffin pan…

Topped with chocolate-pumpkin cream cheese…

I’ll try to remember to take a picture of the grand product tomorrow!

Another reason I love the blogging community? Fun, uplifting rewards! Here are not just one, but two blogging awards I received!

This one was from Emily:

And this one from Katherine Aucoin!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Emily and Katherine! You have totally cheered me up when I needed it the most.

Ah, and now comes the dilemma of who I should pass them on to! I’ve been brooding over this for the longest time, and have finally reached the decision…I’m sending the “I <3 your Blog” award to Heather of Heather Eats Almond Butter and Reeni of Cinnamon, Spice & Everything Nice, for their amazing, creative, and delicious recipes!

The “Excellent” award to Ellie of Inside I’m still Dancing and Lexi from Live.Life for their strength and courage in continuing their personal battles. No matter what, you guys are EX-CELLENT little troopers and don’t you ever forget it! Rock on, sisters!

Hmm. Today’s post has been all about me, me, me. But since I’ve already crossed the border to narcissism, why not go all the way? So for today’s question, instead of me asking you lame questions, I’m challenging you to come up with fresher questions for me. Yup, ask me anything, and I shall answer! Seek, and you shall receive! (Except…I draw the line when it comes to asking questions like what’s my credit card PIN number…not that there’s any savings left anyway…)

My “thick and dense” head and lunch

2009-03-18T07:51:00.001-07:00

Wow. I did not know how time-consuming switching from a PC to a Mac can be! I’ve been spending hours and hours reading up on Mac Tutorials, transferring all my files from my PC to Mac, downloading new software, seraching for a suitable alternative to Windows Live Writer…I had no idea just how labor-intensive and frustrating switching computer programs could be! Or maybe it’s just because I’m really a technologiramous (new word: technologically-ignorant), so I had to look up for online support on everything from using the touchpad to importing my iTune library files…

That said, I still haven’t found a good Mac substitute for Windows Live Writer, even with those programs for which you have to pay! I would have thought Mac would be more blogger-friendly than Microsoft…but I guess you can’t have it all, even with Apple.

Right now, I’m even considering switching to Wordpress…For all you Wordpress-users, could you tell me what is good about Wordpress, and whether it is fast and efficient in uploading images? I don’t mind blogging straight from blogger, it just takes an awful lot of time uploading images…

Anyway, computer-frustrations aside, it has been a pretty delicious past couple of days!

For yesterday’s lunch, I made another variation of a “Mix-it-up” bowl.

When I was young, our family would always go out to eat on the weekend. It would be after church, so my mother would be too lazy/not enough time to cook. So dinner would be out, and of course my parents, the loving and unselfish beings that they are, let us kids choose the dining venue. Obviously, being stupid kids, we did not have exquisite palates; we always ended up choosing Milano, an all-you-can-eat pizza and pasta restaurant. Here, we could stuff our little bellies silly with all the greasy pizza, cheesy lasagna, and sugar-laden ice-cream we could want. Suffice to say, we would waddle out with swollen balloons for stomachs, reeking of cheese and grease.

Now we would always order the same things, but I would always be arguing with my mother over the choice for pizza. I wanted pepperoni, but she said it was too unhealthy. In the end, we would always compromise by ordering the Hawaiian pizza. I was happy with the ham and pepperoni, while my mother was satisfied that there was at least a tiny sprinkle of pineapple there to at least make a dent on my daily required serving of fruits and vegetables.

What is the point of this little anecdote, you ask? Well…absolutely nothing, except that this was the fond memory I reminisced in my mind as I made yesterday’s lunch: “Hawaiian Pizza” Pilaf.

Anyone of you Hawaiian pizza-lovers? Can you guess what went into this delicious “Mix-it-up” bowl? Here’s the breakdown:

“Hawaiian Pizza” Pilaf

The base: 1 cup cooked pearl barley, 1/4 cup black beans, 1/2 cup chopped roasted winter squash

The mix-ins: 1/3 cup of chopped pineapple, 1 whole slab UK back bacon, 2 slices of breakfast ham

The dressing: tomato sauce and sprinkle of Italian herbs

The topping: handful of red and white cheddar cheese and Parmesan cheese

Gosh, this was a humongous bowl. And such an interesting mix of tastes and textures! It really did sort of taste like a Hawaiian pizza, with the tomato sauce and the cheese and the meat and the pineapple. How can I ever have coveted the plain old Pepperoni pizza over this? Mother knows best, I say.

This little bite is sitting on the mountain of “Hawaiian Pizza” proclaiming, I’m the King of the World~

Little did he know…The poor little guy, clinging on for dear life…Say your goodbyes, little fella, it’s time to be devoured by Sophia…

’Twas a delicious, memorable lunch.

I tried out a new snack yesterday, too! I’d been eyeing this little guy for ages but had always chosen my usual cheese and peanut pancakes over him for my snack, but yesterday I was in a generous mood and gave him a chance…

Introducing my new snack buddy, Green tea steamed cake from Bread Talk…

It was really light and fragrant from the green tea powder, but rich at the same time from the cream cheese it was made out of. The texture was fluffy and pleasing. Unfortunately, it was gone too soon.

After my huge success with the Soufflé-omelet the day before, I decided to make another omelet, but this time taking it in a totally different direction. Instead of light and fluffy, this one was dense and thick.

See how heavy and stuffed it is? Can you guess what it is? Spanish Omelet! Here’s the steps:

I first fried up some bacon and ham with minced garlic until fragrant and crisp, then laid them aside. Then I cooked together a huge thinly-sliced onion and 1.5 lbs of thinly-sliced potato (I used a mix of blue and gold potato, hence the purplelish color).

Meanwhile, I whisked together 4 eggs, 3 egg whites, the cooked bacon and ham, 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese, 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, chopped spring onions, Italian herbs, salt and pepper.

Once the potato was tender, I dumped it into the egg mixture, mixed them together, then poured the whole thing into the skillet over low-heat. Here’s when thing got dicey: once the bottom was cooked, I flipped the whole thing over onto a plate, then slid it back into the skillet to cook the other side. Whew! You need some serious arm strength with this thing!

But all the labor was worth it, because this was seriously freaking amazing. I planned to eat a 1/4 of it, but ended up eating more than 1/3, even though I was stuffed!

Just look at the layers! This is definitely not your average “light” omelet lunch.

I think it could have been even better with a spicier and bolder meat like chorizo, but of course that’s almost impossible to find in Singapore. Next time though, I would use more bacon and cheese. You can never go wrong with more bacon and cheese.

Well, I’m off to experiment with my Mac some more and continue looking for a good blogger tool. I’m still considering Wordpress, and am even willing to fork a bit of money to purchase a good software. It might be a good investment. I had originally planned to major in magazine journalism, but these days I’m so impressed by the power of the internet that I’m thinking of taking my journalism dreams online…

Well, just one day left till the weekends! Hold on there, fellow bloggers! And I’d love to read your answer to this question: Is there a particular food with which you have fond childhood memories?

P.S. AnAppleADay is having a second granola giveaway! Check out her blog for more details!

Broke and Happy

2009-03-16T08:12:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven’t been able to post yesterday…I’ve been busy with my brand new MacBook! I’ve been wanting a MacBook for the longest time, after hearing about how MacBook is so much more convenient and user-friendly than PC, and especially since my laptop’s hard disk was going haywire these days. It just so happened that Singapore was holding a huge IT expo last week, where many technological gadgets were on sale with great promotional bundles!

Anyway, I finally got the MacBook I always wanted, except I was forced to get the better (and more expensive) version! When I reached there the model I wanted was all sold out, and there was only one model left, and it was the new 2.4 GHz aluminum MacBook. I took it as God’s sign that He wanted me to splurge a little bit more on the better one…because I’m just that precious to Him. So, I obeyed His obvious will. Who am I to ignore Divine wishes? Everyone, say hello to my new shiny friend!

Anyway, so far I’m really liking the Mac, though I’m still trying to get used to switching from PC. The only thing the Mac lacks, though, is Windows Live Writer! It’s such a pain to blog without this blogging software, and I can’t believe Apple is superior to PC in all areas except being blogger-friendly! It’s so messed up. Any Mac-users out there know of any good blogging software compatible to Mac? Please help! I need my blogging tools! Right now, I’m still using my old PC right now to blog :-(

Anyway, now that I have my shiny new MacBook in front of me (which I can’t help smiling and fondling it with adoration all the time), I am seriously broke. Like, SGD$2,700 (US$1763) broke. How fitting that I’ve been writing about economical eating in the last few posts. Now I’ve got to take my own advice. So be ready to see a lot more “Mix-it-up” bowls and many more variations of barley, beans, pumpkin, etc.

I had another “Mix-it-up” bowl yesterday for lunch. Same steps as the day before, just a slight change in the components to create this:

Cheesy BBQ Pilaf

The base: 1 cup cooked pearl barley

The mix-ins: 1/4 cup black beans and 1/2 cup chopped roasted winter squash

The dressing: homemade BBQ sauce (a mixture of my homemade ketchup, soy sauce, fish sauce, maple syrup, black pepper)

The topping: tablespoonfuls of red and white cheddar cheese, green onion, soft-boiled egg

This bowl was freaking amazing, even better than the one I had before. I loved the sweet and bold kick of the homemade BBQ sauce, and how the runny yolk of the egg soaked into each grain!

And oh, the cheese! I just plopped them on top of the fresh-out-of-the-skillet ingredients, and they slowly melted by itself into ultra-gooeyness…

Heh heh, I couldn’t resist taking tons of pictures, even though I was drooling from all the wonderful smells…

I had dinner out with Wengang and Liwen last night, as we were going to the IT expo together afterward. And guess what? I was the one to suggest dining out together myself. I even surprised myself, because I normally shy away from social and public dining, but I suddenly was just in the mood to really challenge myself that day.

Wengang and Liwen asked me where I wanted to dine, but I relegated the choice to them as I did not want to give ED any chance to worm his way into my decision. Truthfully, I was afraid I might chicken out and choose someplace familiar and safe.

We ended up going to out neighborhood Kopitiam (outdoor food stalls prevalent in Singapore and Malaysia), and chose this place called Piccolo, which sells pasta and pizza. I have a feeling they purposely chose this place because they knew I did not really care for Chinese food.

Anyway, this being Singapore and a Kopitiam, nary a dieter’s entree like salad in sight! I was actually relieved because that meant I had to choose something outside my comfort zone. No, really. I don’t know what was going on with me yesterday; I was in such a gung-ho spirit to fight ED. Hey, I’m not complaining. ED, bring it on!

Thus, to spit on ED’s face, this is what I ordered:

Crepes stuffed with chicken-spinach filling in creamy cheese sauce

Aren’t they cute delicious-looking things? I loved how they formed them into three little towers of cones.

The filling was a mixture of ground chicken, spinach, and mushrooms. The sauce around it was very rich and creamy, cheesy from the melted cheese inside and tangy from the tomato sauce. Very, very tasty, except it was not really a crepe, those liars. The wrapping was not your basic crepe, but really more like pasta. I think they used lasagna noodles. Oh well, it was still very good.

I actually finished them all! Even the cream sauce! I moped every bit of the uber-fattening cream sauce up with my refined white pasta. I even stole bites out of Wengang and Liwen’s dishes.

Wengang ordered the Spaghetti di Mussels:

This was just okay. I don’t really like mussels and clams so much. They’re stinky and slimy. Anybody agree?

Liwen’s dish was better. She ordered the Salmon-baked cheesy rice:

This was a dish of seasoned white rice, topped with chunks of pink salmon and finished off with lots of mozzarella cheese and baked till golden-brown. Very yummy, but I found it a bit too greasy…I wouldn’t be able to finish it, and neither did Liwen.

After dinner we marched off to get us some great bargains at the IT expo, where I got my beautiful, shiny MacBook. It came with a great promotional bundle: Microsoft Office:Mac, keyboard cover, laptop case, notebook cooler pad, and a mouse. I totally burned a hole in my credit card last night, but I take this as my reward for being victorious against ED that night!

Following my own advice in economical eating, I cooked up a big batch of black beans this morning. I have another tip on leftovers: you can always use them up to create innovative omelets!

But! Today’s omelet was ultra-special…I decided that even if I’m going to have simple dishes, I’m going to jazz it up as much as I can! So I made a soufflé omelet with vegetarian curry-filling:

I separated two eggs, and whipped the egg whites until they formed firm, opaque peaks:

I whisked the egg yolks together with a tablespoon of water, seasoned it with salt and pepper, then folded them into the egg white cloud:

Then I just heated and oiled a skillet over medium-heat, and spread the puffy egg mixture over. Meanwhile, I made the curry filling, following the same recipe which I used to make the chicken-tomato curry, except I
substituted black beans, roasted eggplant, and pumpkin for the chicken. Oh, and a squirt of maple syrup at the end, just for fun. When the bottom of the omelet was done, I scooped in the filling over half the omelet, added 2 tablespoonfuls of cucumber-garlic cheese spread, and folded the other half over. Ladies and gentlemen, please applaud Soufflé-Omelet with Vegetarian Curry-Filling:

Isn’t this amazing? This was humongous, and I couldn’t believe I got so much out of only two eggs! All that air beaten into the egg whites really maximized its volume.

This method of omelet really kicked it up several notches. The egg is so incredibly fluffy and fat and thick and delicate! It was like eating protein pancakes!

The filling was awesome, too. Both sweet and spicy, with the added cool tang from the cheese.

A very odd and intricate combination of flavors and textures indeed, but the result was just phenomenal. I’ll definitely be trying another variation of this souffle-omelet sometime…Maybe a sweet version?

Hee hee hee! I’m just so giddy with excitement and pleasure over my new MacBook! This has been a good day. I spent the entire afternoon hunched over my new notebook, getting Mac tutorials online and just touching, touching, touching my lovely Macbook! Okay, how many times have I repeated that word “Macbook” in this entire post? No wonder the logo is an apple. This notebooks is like my Eve’s apple, beckoning and seducing me with its smooth, sleek screen and shiny finish…

Okay, sorry, I’ll stop. Another reason I’m so hyper right now is because I finally got my eating disorder series article posted at Not Another Omnivore’s blog! Please, check it out and let me know what you think! I’m very curious about your opinions and feedbacks.

Oh, and today’s question of the day has nothing to do with food: Mac or PC? For me, if Mac had its version of Windows Live Writer to rival PC, it would be just perfect.

All by Myself…

2009-03-14T07:53:00.001-07:00

I love cooking for myself. Given the choice between dining out at a restaurant and cooking my own meal at home, I would prefer the home-cooked meal, even if someone else was willing to pay for my meal out. And it is not because of ED, I swear.

I just love the whole process of cooking, especially when I try out a new recipe or create my own dishes. I love the hands-on chopping and mixing and stirring, love choosing each ingredient with care and attention, being aware of each components that make up the overall taste of the dish. I adore the innovation and novelty of trying out a fresh new recipe, love adding my own little twist and trademarks; I treasure the experience of tasting the finished product with both apprehension and excitement, and thoroughly relieve the pride and accomplishment I feel with each success. Even if I failed, I end up learning something new. Actually, the way I look at it, the more disastrous the result, the more interesting a story to tell in the end.

But a lot of people shy away from cooking, especially if they are cooking for themselves. And truthfully, I do understand why they avoid it. Cooking for one is not that easy or cheap, as most produce don’t come in single-servings, or if they do, they usually cost a lot more. In addition, most recipes available out there comes in servings of four to six. Nobody likes to live on leftovers for four to six consecutive days. You could always scale down the recipe, of course, but cooking just a single serving worth of beans or rice, and turning on the whole oven just to bake a single potato or a small slab of tofu seems like an awful waste of energy and electrical costs.

So how do I do it? You might have noticed that I always cook for myself, and that I usually always have something different each day. My meals are rarely based on boxed, frozen, or microwaveable products, but are always made from scratch with fresh ingredients. Because I am an incredibly generous and kind person, let me just share a few of my tips based on my own experience:

Well, first of all, become best buddies with your freezer and toaster oven. When you buy meat or fish, portion them out into single servings and then freeze them, where they can keep for months. The toaster oven is a big help when you want to bake something small like a potato but don’t wanna waste energy by turning on a whole oven.

Also, when it comes to fresh produce, try to limit yourself. Don’t buy whole caskets of veggies and fruits, where they will inevitably sit for days in your fridge, wilting and molding. I’m lucky in that I live a stone’s throw away from the supermarket, so I can just hop over to buy fresh produce everyday.

Try different grains and beans. Buy them in bulk by weight, since they are cheaper that way, and you can choose your own measurements. Cook up several servings at once, and store the leftovers in the fridge. They make excellent base for new recipes and creations.

Get ingredients that are versatile, like potatoes, eggs, and cheese. Things that you can buy in bulk, but won’t have trouble using them up or having to eat the same dish everyday, because they are flexible enough to be used in myriads of different dishes.

Case in point: Today’s lunch was a whole new dish made out of leftovers. It took barely any brain energy nor time to whip it up. In fact, it was totally last minute, because I had been expecting to have lunch out with Liwen and Wengang, but at the last minute they had to hurry to church to deal with some issues. By then it was already past 2pm, and my stomach was growling. I didn’t have time to wait for a potato to bake, or dream up of a complicated new dish. I just wanted something fast, ready, and simple.

I looked into my fridge, and saw that I had leftover barley, black beans, and roasted winter squash. Perfect! Below is the “recipe,” and I have divided them into different components which you can follow to create your own signature dish:

Basic “Mix-it-up” Bowl recipe

The base: 1 cup cooked pearl barley (other suggestions: rice, bulgur, wheat berries, couscous, etc.)

The mix-ins: 1/4 cup black beans and 1/2 cup chopped roasted winter squash (other suggestions: any other type of beans, lentils, root vegetables like sweet potatoes and parsnips)

The dressing: splash of soy sauce and maple syrup (other suggestions: BBQ sauce, teriyaki sauce, pasta sauce, Italian dressing, blah blah whatever fits your fancy)

The topping: big spoonful of desiccated coconut and chopped spring onion (other suggestions: any kind of crushed nuts, seeds, fresh herbs, dried fruits, egg, cheese, the sky’s the limit!)

DIRECTIONS: Heat up some oil in a skillet over medium heat, stir in minced garlic and chopped onions until soft and fragrant. Toss in your base and mix-in ingredients, stir to mix. Splash in the dressing and mix to coat. Dish the mixture out into a bowl and sprinkle with your desired topping.

This was my version of a “Mix-it-up” bowl:

Beans-and-Squash Barley Pilaf with Coconut

So freaking fast and easy, and I got to use up three of my leftovers! All I needed to do was choose the dressing and topping and chop up some garlic and onions. Now that’s what I call smart, efficient, economical, and practical!

Not to mention utterly delicious. Can you believe the colors and textures of this amazing bowl of leftovers?

The taste was really complex and interesting: the savory Asian flavor from the soy sauce, the subtle sweetness from the maple syrup, and the unique tropical taste from the coconut all combined together in one freaking scrumptious bowl.

I really love this “recipe,” because there are so many different dishes I can create with this one recipe! My head is already churning with all sorts of ideas…I can guarantee you there’s gonna be more of these “Mix-it-up” bowls in the future!

So, have I convinced anyone yet? There shouldn’t be any more excuses not to cook for oneself! Okay, I admit it, sometimes it doesn’t work, like with big batches of soup or baked goods or casseroles, but then…that’s when you’ve gotta share! In cases when I have to cook up a huge batch, I just set aside my own portion and then share the rest with my friends. Trust me, you gain a lot of popularity this way. Tee hee!

Now, I’d love to hear from you! Do you cook for yourself often? Any tips or advice you’d like to share on cooking for yourself? And also, please share some of your ideas based on this “Mix-it-up” recipe! What are some of the creations you’d like to try?

Oh, and heads up: I’ve been invited as a guest blogger to write an article on Not Another Omnivore’s eating disorder blog! The article is not up yet, but will probably be posted sometime on Monday. I’ll let you know, but in the meantime please check out her eating disorder blog! It has a lot of great information on eating disorders, as well as her own personal story. I love that she’s trying to bring more awareness to eating disorders, since this disease is so prevalent yet so misunderstood.

Going all Casanova over Carbonara

2009-03-13T08:22:00.001-07:00

Some things just go together. In fact, sometimes they complement each other so well, any other addition becomes redundant and excessive. Take a good, crusty bread just baked out of the oven, for example. You’re not going to want to overcrowd its fresh-baked goodness with a whole lots of toppings. No, just good-quality butter, or a hunk of nice artisanal cheese, and you’ve got yourself the perfect combination. Think, also, of cinnamon and brown sugar. Peanut butter and jelly. Butter, sugar, egg, and flour. Garlic, onions, olive oil. And then of course, the classic breakfast combination, bacon and eggs.

You know I love my breakfasty meals. I love them so much that I unconsciously base my meal creations around breakfasty themes, like my Eggplasta Pudding that I have almost every night (It’s that good!). So when I heard of a pasta dish called Pasta alla Carbonara that uses minimal ingredients while spotlighting bacon and eggs, I was hooked.

I’ve never tried Pasta alla Carbonara before. I’ve seen them on menus of restaurants, but never bothered to order them since I never cared much for pasta. But ever since I found out what this pasta dish was, I’d had carbonara on the brain. After enduring several days of little Italian men singing “Carrrrr~bonarrrrrra~” in my brain, I decided to shut them up by trying out this dish.

Unfortunately, I am very much broke, especially after that Penang trip. But I was pretty sure this would be an easy dish to create at home. I mean, come on, the key ingredients are bacon and eggs! I looked up on recipes for Carbonara online, and was glad to find out I was right. This dish was freaking easy to make.

Now, you know I can never resist tweaking a recipe to my own tastes and preferences. All the recipes call for long thin noodles like spaghetti, but I decided to try a different route and substitute some kind of grain. I wanted something distinctive and chewy, something that did not stick together in lumps or become nushy, something that held its shape well. I chose pearled barley.

So here’s my version of carbonara, Barley alla Carbonara:

Cook 1/3 cup pearled barley in salted water at a 1:3 ratio until desired doneness.

Meanwhile, cook some minced garlic and a small finely chopped onion until soft, then add about 2 tablespoons of chopped bacon (I used a fatty back bacon) and fry until fragrant.

In a separate bowl, whisk together 2 tablespoons yogurt/ sour cream/ whipping cream (I used yogurt), an egg, 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, and black pepper.

Toss the barley into the bacon mixture, stir to mix.

Turn off heat, then stir in the egg mixture and mix to coat each grain.

Add more cheese on top, and sprinkle on some chopped spring onion or some kind of herbs for color and extra flavor!

And here’s the result:

Okay, I have no idea how a real Carbonara is supposed to taste like, but oh my freaking god it was freaking good! You might be a bit wary about using raw eggs, but the heat from the barley cooks up the egg mixture ever so slightly to form this really creamy and flavorful binder.

How can just the simple combination of bacon and eggs be so…intricately and elaborately delicious? The smoky, salty background of the bacon was so subtle, yet so striking.

I loved the each individual grain of barley! Can you believe this is the first time I’ve tried cooking barley? What took me so long to discover the joy of barley? I remember my mother once saying that poor farmers in Korea used to eat barley all the time because they couldn’t afford white rice, but if this is the poor man’s grain, poverty sure sounds darn tasty to me!

Each bite sent me moaning with ecstasy. I was like Romeo, serenading and wooing my sweet Juliet. Like Casanova, I have fallen head over heels in love with this simple dish, and I wanted to compose love songs and poems about the great Carbonara.

I plowed my way through this little mountain of scrumptiousness with luscious enjoyment, loving all the textures of crunch from the crisp bacon, creaminess from the eggs, and chew from the barley. I felt quite heartsick by the last bite…

But like Casanova, I got over my lovesickness pretty quickly come dinner time…

Monte Cristo sandwich again! What can I say? If Casanova is an womanizer, I’m a food-izer. God made everything taste so good!

So that’s my little food romance I had today. I hope you guys have some great foodie flings this weekend as well! Now, I bid you farewell with the usual question of the day: What are some of your favorite classic food combos?

By the way, Mom on the Run is having a Pop Chips giveaway! I've never tried those, but they sound awfully delicious! Check out her blog for details!

Potato-potato Gal

2009-03-12T07:56:00.001-07:00

A lot of you have asked about my blue potato. It seems that this unique variety of potato has drawn a lot of green (or should I say blue) envious attention. So I decided to dedicate a small section of this blog to the brilliant blue potato.

You’re gonna be disappointed. This potato tastes just exactly like a regular potato. I’m so sorry, Emily, but it does not taste like blueberries in the least, though wouldn’t it be freaking awesome if it did? But it is kind of like blueberries…You know why blueberries are blue? Because they contain this incredible antioxidant that gives them their brilliant color. These same antioxidants are what makes these potatoes blue as well.

Texture wise, they are waxy and firm, very much like gold or red potatoes, so they are perfect for gratins, chips, salads, mashed taters, or just plain baked, roasted, or grilled. Here are just a few examples of how I prepared them:

Well, I’ll bet you’re dying to get some of these fabulous smurfy-blue spuds yourself, aren’t you? These aren’t that easy to find, I admit. I’m lucky here in Singapore; I just buy them from my local grocery store, but they are imported from USA, so I’m sure you can find them somewhere around you. Back in the states, I found my blue potatoes in Whole Foods and occasionally in Asian grocery stores.

Alright, on to today’s eats!

I’m not much of a meat-eater. I’ll take veggies and carbs any day. But there are times when the carnivore in me stretches out into a preying position, and today was the day I suddenly had a craving for some meat. And not the pussy white meat, but good ol’ red meat.

So today’s lunch included a good sized portion of Australian eye round:

Steak with cheese sauce, Tropical Mash, and garlicky greens.

For the eye round, I seasoned both sides of the steak with salt and pepper, then seared it over medium-high heat till the exterior was lightly seared and the middle was medium-rare.

Meanwhile, I prepared a simple sauce for the steak: I taste–and-tested my way through a mixture of yogurt, cucumber-garlic cheese spread, minced red onion, sweetener, salt & pepper.

This steak with cheese sauce was supposed to take center stage, but a cunning side item stole the spotlight!

Say hello to Tropical Mash:

This is a mash of about 1 cup winter squash, 3 tbsp coconut milk, 1 tbsp plain yogurt, vanilla, cinnamon, chopped fresh pineapple, salt. I made a dent in the middle and poured maple syrup over to keep it from mixing with the meat.

Holy…freaking…yum…!!!!! This just proves it: I’m a veggie-lover. With wonderful, flavorful vegetables like broccoli, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, etc., who misses meat? Not me.

To be fair, the meat was pretty good. It was moist and tender and absolutely lovely with the tangy cheese sauce.

Look at the pinkness in the middle! That’s the only way a piece of steak should be cooked. Rare, or medium-rare. I have a real problem with well-done steaks. Why do you wanna butcher a good piece of meat like that? Think of the poor cow! It sacrificed its meat for you, and you don’t wanna waste its kindness by cooking it to death!

Speaking of kindness…Gera of Sweets Foods gave me my second award!

It’s the Lemonade Cheers Award, and I was sure cheered up to receive this! Thank you, Gera!

I love receiving blog awards, but then the trouble is…who to pass it on to? I can’t pass out to too many or it will lose its significance, but all of you are wonderful and I feel bad missing some of you out. So please spread out this cheer if you receive this!

There are three people who come instantly to my mind when I think about cheerful blogs that never fail to lift up my spirits and make me smile, and that’s:

Thanks, girls, for always cheering me up like a nice cool glass of puckish lemonade!

And as always, today’s inspired question: What are some side items that take center stage for you in a meal? For me, it’s always the starch! Roasted squash, baked potatoes, sweet potato chips…I’m not a meat-and-potato gal, I’m a potato-potato gal!

It’s POOP…It’s MUD…It’s SNACK-TIME!

2009-03-11T07:46:00.001-07:00

Bet that caught your eye, huh? You’re probably wondering what poop and mud have got to do with snacks…But I’m not gonna divulge anything about my poopy little adventure just yet…I’m leaving it to the end when all’s been said and done so that your appetites aren’t ruined just yet, because I’m excited to share some tasty meals I’ve had!

But here’s a hint: it’s got to do with black beans, which I also incorporated to Tuesday’s lunch. I still had about 1 cup of dried black beans left from last time, so the night before yesterday, I soaked them in water and then cooked them up in the morning.

Now I’m well aware that it’s the recession times and people are trying to be as frugal as possible, so here’s a great tip to save some bucks: It’s so much cheaper to buy beans dried rather than canned. I paid SGD$1.05 (US$0.69) for a packet of about 2 cups dried black beans, which produced almost 4 cups worth of cooked beans. Compare it to the SGD$3.45 (US$2.25) that I have to pay for a 2 cups cooked worth of canned beans! I understand that canned beans seem so much more convenient, but it actually barely takes any time and effort to cook dried beans. Just soak overnight, throw them into a pot, and cook and simmer until done!

Anyway, it was really hot and humid yesterday, and I was hankering for a nice, cool salad. I haven’t had salad in ages, because it’s just not the ideal weight-gainer’s food (too much volume for too little calories), and I’ve been trying to break the habit of just ordering salads in restaurants. Plus, the price of good salad ingredients here in Singapore (NOT ice-burg lettuce) is ridiculous.

But I really, really craved a nice crunchy salad, and the idea of cooking up a hot meal in the sweltering weather did not appeal to me at all. So I decided to load up on the more calorific stuff, go light on the less dense stuff like raw veggies, and pile on some good dressing.

Here are the ingredients that went into my awesome yet simple salad:

~1/2 cup black beans
~1 cup chopped roasted winter squash
1 small tomato
1 small red onion
a few ice-burg lettuce
homemade blue-cheese dressing

The blue-cheese dressing was a spontaneous thing that I just created by mixing things together and tasting as I went: yogurt, almond milk, vinegar, ~ 2 tablespoons of blue cheese, ~1 tablespoon of cucumber-garlic cheese spread, sweetener, black pepper. Sorry, I don’t have the exact measurements; this was entirely out of whim.

All mixed together:

Mmm. I will never, ever understand how anyone can detest salads. I think people are just turned off by the fact that it is a “dieter’s meal” and thus they are not supposed to like it. But seriously, with all the different combinations of flavors and textures, the coolness and crispness of fresh raw vegetables, and the brilliant variety of bright colors, salads are definitely one happy meal for me.

If yesterday’s lunch was cool and refreshing, today’s lunch was the exact opposite. The crazy, unpredictable weather suddenly dropped a few degrees today, and the sky has been cloudy, moody, and occasionally drizzly. So this time, I was in the mood for some heat.

I decided to use up my remaining chicken breast for a good chicken curry. There were also a whole bunch of tomatoes in the fridge which have been sitting there for a suspiciously long time, so I decided to use those up too. I did a bit of research online, and found the perfect recipe for tomato-chicken curry at tigerfish’s blog. I followed the direction, but made a few changes to the ingredients. These are the ingredients that went into my adapted version. The ones highlighted are the ones I changed:

about 5 oz chicken breast, cubed
1 big juicy tomato, chopped
1 small chopped onion, chopped
1 fat clove garlic, minced
about 1/3 cup coconut milk
about 1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 tsp curry powder
sprinkle of garam marsala
some brown sugar
black pepper & salt

I paired my tomato-chicken curry with some garlicky greens and a baked blue potato:

Just look at the colors! Green, red, orange, blue!

And…a bit of pink left from the juices from the red spinach!

I admit it. I pay twice the amount for this blue potato than I would pay for regular potatoes just for the lovely color. But apparently these blue potatoes carry extra antioxidants (like blueberries), so the bigger bucks are worth it!

It took me just 15 minutes to prepare this entire meal from scratch. No wonder people have chicken for dinner all the time! It’s fast, easy, versatile, and simple!

Tastes incredible, too! I put in a bit more curry powder than others would, so you might find this a bit spicy, but this was actually pretty mild for me.

But the sauce was still so freaking delicious, with the burst tomato juices, the complex spice of the curry powder, the sweetness from the onions, the kick from the garam marsala, the balance of acid and sweetness between the sugar and the tomato sauce. YUM!

I liked this so much, I whipped up another double portion of this for Liwen and Wengang (the lovely couple who’re housing me), so they can also share the joy of a nice delicious curry! For you vegetarians, I suggest using potatoes and tofu or tempeh to substitute the chicken.

Okay, now the moment we have all been waiting for…what about that poop, eh? Well, here’s lovely picture of the bowl of poop I enjoyed for my snack this afternoon:

Hahahahahahahaha! I’ll bet you’re all going,“EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWW!!!”

But hear me out! It’s not what you think.

This disgusting-looking concoction is actually another variation of my black bean/pumpkin pancake. I blended together:

3/4 cup black beans
1 cup pumpkin
2 tbsp cocoa
drop of vanilla
drop of coconut extract
cinnamon
pinch of salt

The result was this really creamy, rich, bittersweet, chocolaty paste. Once I got over its poopy appearance, I was moaning with pleasure in every bite. I even licked the bowl clean, it was that good. Against my better judgment, just for the sake of hilarious fun, I’m calling this creation: Poop-in-poop-out. Because of all the fabulous fiber from the beans and pumpkin, a healthy bowl of this is sure to release any constipation!

…………Don’t stare at me like that! I just like a little poop joke here and then. Seriously, give this concoction a try, and you’ll be joining me in a joyful poopy dance.

So, here’s to a delicious, poopilicious day, everyone! I bid you adieu with today’s question of the day: Has the recession forced you to make some cuts on food costs? What do you do and how?

Sssss….I’m spicy hot!

2009-03-09T07:20:00.001-07:00

I’ve always loved spicy food. In fact, the spicier, the better. I’m Korean, and the Koreans love their spice. What’s more, I grew up in Singapore, where there are plentiful aromatic dishes with lots of heat not just from chili but all sorts of other spices. These people enjoy their chili so much, there is a bucket of different sorts of chili sauce in every food stall which you can ladle onto your dish to your own liking.

Because I grew up dousing chili in my rice and soup and fries, I find myself scorning people who can’t bear spicy food. I get exasperated with people who think kimchi is spicy. To me, kimchi is merely a appetite-arouser, and besides, the coolness of the cabbage eliminates any heat from the chili paste. And I hate it when the menu of a restaurant promises a “warning: very spicy!” dish and it turns out to barely tickle the tongue at all. People who can’t bear the heat are sissies, and I was damn proud of my ability to smother my food with Tabasco sauce and still not feel a thing.

Thus it was with this attitude that I approached my lunch today. I decided to make a chicken dish, adapted from Zestycook’s spicy basil chicken recipe. I basically followed this recipe, except I halved the entire recipe, used cilantro instead of basil because I couldn’t find it, and also Thai bird’s eye chili pepper (aka chili padi) instead of the Jalapeño pepper. I also added a touch of maple syrup into the soy sauce and fish sauce mixture.

Now, this is when I got all stupid and gung-ho. I’m not ignorant with my chili, I know that these little red devils are incredibly spicy. But I was sure I could handle it. So I sliced up six of these little fiery pods.

The minute I tossed them into the skillet, I knew I made a big mistake. The fiery fumes leapt up into my eyes and nose, and I started sneezing like crazy. My eyes watered up and my nostrils stung. And I had not even tasted it! I hurriedly fished out most of the chili.

Well, I was not going to waste some good chicken. I was still going to eat it even if my tongue got scorched through. I served this up with a baked potato “fan”, cooked cabbage, and iced green tea:

Crossing my fingers that the dish was not entirely ruined, I took a bite. My nostrils flared up again, and my tongue burned, but not in an entirely unpleasant way. The heat was quite bearable.

This is only my second time trying to cook chicken. The first time I tried cooking chicken, it came out disgusting dry and sour. But this time, the chicken stayed incredibly moist and tender.

The baked potato “fan” helped counteract the spiciness of the chicken. I think this is my favorite way of eating a baked potato, as it has all the characteristics of a creamy baked potato in the interior, while also treating me to a crunchy “chip” exterior. I added a dab of cucumber-chive cheese spread on top.

For afternoon snack today, I tried a different flavor of Mr Bean pancake! I had two of these:

Mr Bean pancake with tuna filling!

This was every bit as good as the cheese pancake…You might be seeing this more often! Definitely happening again.

Wow, this feels weird to have such a short post today (in comparison to the ones before). Well, hope all of you have a great new week, and here’s today’s question: Do you like spicy foods? If so, which is your favorite?

And the moral of this trip is…

2009-03-08T07:53:00.001-07:00

Aaaah. Home sweet home. Okay, Singapore is not my home and I’m leaving in just two months, but it does sure feel good to be back home. Sorry for the outrageously long post yesterday, and not being able to share more about my reflections back from the Penang trip, but I was quite busy all day, having to unpack my bags, wash all my dirty clothes, restock the fridge, upload my pictures, and finally take a long, hot bath! It was storming yesterday, so the cool weather was such a relief from the smothering heat in Malaysia.

But anyway. I was too occupied with reconciling with my long lost wireless friend the internet last night to be able to sit calmly and think back about the Penang trip, but here I am in a less excited mood with my internet-addict thirst satisfied somewhat.

After last night’s mega-post, I don’t want to overdo tonight by going all deep and sentimental and long-winded, so I’ll keep this into a short and sweet list.

Some Facts I learned from my Penang Trip:

1. A lot of my fears are unaccounted. I’ve been wasting precious energy and emotion fretting and worrying over this trip, but guess what? It turned out pretty well. I did not die, nothing disastrous happened, and though there were tough battles, they were nothing I could not handle. I’ll keep this in mind when ED hurls all sorts of other unaccounted, unreasonable fears at me in the future.

2. Food is not such a big deal. Really. I used to obsess over every meal and every snack, panicking over the calories, worrying about whether it would taste good and thus be “worth” the calories. I still have some of that in me, but this trip to Penang and the continuous social eating has pulled me back a step from this obsessive mentality. It has been good practice to eat socially, because slowly I did not care so much for the food as I cared for enjoyment of the company. I still favor slowly and indulgently savoring a meal in my own privacy, but no longer dread but actually anticipate a good social meal.

3. A bit of junk food here and there is not the end of the world. In fact, they can be downright crappily delicious. I wanna enjoy the occasional “trash food” rather than getting so uptight and anxious that I can’t enjoy it at all.

4. Not everyone is as lucky as me to be able to afford to care about nutrition and daily comforts: My host family is not well-off at all. They’re really struggling financially, actually. They can’t afford the daily luxuries like air-conditioning, hot water, well-stocked kitchen equipment, or better-quality food that I take for granted. In order to make ends meet, they have to cut back on more expensive food expenses, like hotdogs instead of fresh meat and white bread instead of whole grain. And here I am spending twice as much money on Greek yogurt because it tastes better than plain. How incredibly fortunate am I? Before I left, I gave this family a “love gift” of R400.

5. Precious relationships can be formed anywhere you go: I am so thankful for the precious people I meet everywhere, be it America, Singapore, or Malaysia. God has really blessed me with great relationships wherever I go.

6. You can be successful just by excelling in one thing you’re truly passionate about: 3 big mansions? Just by selling good char kway teow in the streets? Seriously?

So there they are. Simple facts that I’d forgotten and of which I need to be reminded. There are more, but then they are more religious and spiritual and more suitable for another blog.

I’ll share more pictures of Penang later, but first, today’s eats!

I had lunch with Jingwen and Serene out today. I was pretty much broke after my Penang trip, and Jingwen was saving up her money to buy a puppy, so we just headed for the food court at Raffles City. I ordered the chicken and beef patty teppanyaki:

This was an abundant dish, with chicken pieces, a hand-formed beef patty, and bean sprouts fried up teppanyaki-style, and with a sunny-side egg as a bonus!

The chicken was doused with sweet and spicy Japanese curry sauce, while the beef patty was covered with a sticky, sweet teriyaki sauce.

I thought the egg was perfectly cooked with a lovely, runny yolk. The beef was okay, though the quality was not that good as I came across several suspiciously chewy spots.

The chicken, however, was quite disgusting. Now I dislike Japanese curry, because it’s sweet and to me curry should be as spicy and fiery as possible. I did not know they were going to smother my chicken with this sauce until it was too late. But the curry wasn’t the problem this time. It was the chicken itself, which was tough and strangely bitter. I could only choke down half of the chicken.

This meal also came with a seaweed/egg soup:

Basically tasted like tap water with bits of beaten egg and miserable strands of anorexic seaweed.

Jingwen ordered a smaller portion, just the chicken teppanyaki with white rice:

The same chicken and curry sauce as mine, except her chicken was much better than mine. I thought they were supposed to taste the same? No fair.

When I got home I said a joyful hello to my old snack-friend, the Mr Bean cheese pancake…

By flaying it alive. I love to torture my pancakes.

Dinner was another hello to an old friend:

Monte Cristo Sandwiches, soaking up all the maple syrup nectar. And also an otah with which Liwen surprised me:

Oh, yum. Oh, heaven. Oh, sweet Jesus.

Chomp, chomp, chomp……

………………………………………………………………………………………………

What are you still looking at? Oh, yeah, today’s question of the day: What old-time meals/snacks do you crave the most when you’re out on vacation?

And as promised, some more extra pictures of Penang:

The Penang mountains…

Roadside hawker. Since Penang is famous only for its food, I’m just featuring their famous typical street food stalls.

Penang Recap

2009-03-07T06:07:00.001-08:00

I’m back! Sorry, I didn’t get the chance to continue blogging in Penang like I had hoped to, but I did sort of blog each day, except lacked the wireless service to post it online. Thus, super, super long post today. It’s six-days-all-in-one post, so brace yourselves.

**Just to clear things up, this trip to Penang is not really a vacation. It’s a mission trip with just my church pastor (yes, awkward, but he’s a super cool guy). Our trip is an early embarkment to set up a church in Penang, where we would have daily night sermons. Remember my friend from Penang, Kristine, whom I mentioned in several earlier posts? Well, she and her family would be hosting us at their bungalow home.

The rough daily schedule is: breakfast (by myself, since I’m the only person who wakes up early enough), early lunch out together, whatever social activity planned for the day, rushed “dinner”, then daily sermon at 8pm, which usually ends around 11pm.

03/02/2009: Day One

Man, oh man! First day and it’s already off to a pretty rocky start. I really can’t see myself enjoying this trip much. Call me spoiled, but I’m already aching to fly back to my taken-for-granted daily comforts in Singapore!

But let’s hold off the whines and complaints for a while. First, the good news. I challenged myself and faced my aversion to white rice! We had lunch on the plane, and you guys all know how plane fare is like. Mushy, unidentifiable objects squished and reheated together in a flimsy, environment-polluting aluminum tray. If there are even any veggies at all, they are all cooked to death until soft and brown and devoid of any nutrients. Well, the food I was served on the plane was no different. What’s more, we weren’t even given an option! We were seated at the end of the plane, and this is what the steward said to us in broken English by the time he reached us : “Hello, so sorry ah, we have chicken and beef but no more chicken. Is beef okay for you?”

Um, do I have any other choice? Of course I would have preferred something else, but these were the circumstances and I accepted it. Here’s a quick shot of my charming meal on the plane:

3 sticks of beef satay, peanut sauce, on top of a bed of nasi goreng, which is a sort of Indonesian fried rice.

Those who have been reading my earlier posts would know that I. HATE.white.rice. With a passion. So much that just the sight of a bowl of white rice makes me want to hurl. I’m not exaggerating, I just hate white rice so much, probably due to all those years my parents tried to force-feed me that vile refined grain. Stupid, immature, I know, but can’t help how I feel.

Anyway, this made it all the worse because not only is it white rice, it is fried in oil (and not even the “healthy” oils like olive or canola) and overcooked to boot. Plus, not a speck of vegetable to be seen anywhere. Oh wait, strike that, there was one teeny weensy bit of greasy onion. Boy, way to hit my daily recommended servings of vegetables.

Despite all this, I decided that I was not going to start off my first meal into the Penang trip in failure. So I picked up my fork and ate. Every scrap of it. Yup, even the damn rice. Here’s the proof:

The beef satay was actually quite good. The rice was just, eh. But I didn’t die, so I’m okay. Though I was a bit turned off by the remaining coat of orange grease left from the fried rice.

I’m not really a glass-half-full person. It’s one of the things I’ve always been trying to change about myself, but am still a long way off. So when I reached Kristine’s house, all the negative points stuck out like a sore thumb:

1) There is NO hot water! How the hell am I supposed to take a shower? What’s more, the water is from the mountains, so it’s extra freezing cold! Guess I’m gonna have to go without a bath for six days?!!

2) NO wireless service! AAAAAAHHHH! The blogger in me was gasping in anguish.

3) Very, very minimal cooking appliances and equipment. Like, there’s not even a microwave. You need a lighter to set fire to the “stove.” The knives are blunt and frankly, useless. The fridge is well…perfect for an alcoholic bachelor.

4) And on the subject of fridges…The contents in the fridge? Hotdogs. White rice. White bread. Freezer-burned cake. Frozen fish left open on a plate, stinking up the whole fridge. Instant noodle packages (I have no idea why they store that in the fridge?). And…that’s about it. Not even a miserable leaf of vegetables or a fruit!

5) There is NO grocery store at a reasonable distance. As a girl who goes grocery shopping nearly everyday for fresh produce, this is a total nightmare.

6) There is like a permanent stink in the house. A disgusting mingle of rotting fish, bloody meat, and mildew. And there is no air ventilation in the bathroom. I feel like I’m underwater, having to hold my breath all the time.

7) Hello, moth. Hello, wasp. Hello, fire-ant. Hello, cockroaches and non-identifiable insects and tiny worms. Yes, I am literally sleeping with the bugs.

8) The dogs here are left out in the open, unleashed by irresponsible, inconsiderate owners. And they’re not those cute little adorable puppies that wag their tails and look up upon you with doleful, adoring eyes. No, these are vicious, ugly creatures that bark and snarl at you just because you had the guts to walk pass them. I have 3-5 of these irritating dogs yapping and growling and following me all the way to the end of the street each time I walk pass.

On the bright side, thank God, Hallelujah, I had the wisdom to bring along a big packet of rolled oats. Dinner was a rushed affair because we had church service. I had a big bowl of oatmeal while the others chowed down a couple of fried hotdogs with white bread. After service, they went out for “supper” but it was already midnight and I wasn’t ready for deep-fried street foods that late into the night, so I stayed in and had another 2 bowls of oatmeal. I may be having oatmeal quite a lot the next few days. Not that I’ll ever get sick of oatmeal, but I just feel…so damn guilty that I can’t just eat what the others eat.

So that’s how the first day went. A bit of success, a bit of failures. One day down, 5 more to go.

Damn, I miss my comfortable, pampered life in Singapore and the States.

03/03/2009: Day Two

Wow. Today actually wasn’t that bad at all. The discomforts were still there, but maybe…I’m getting used to it? I’m starting to learn to deal with the fact that I can’t always manipulate things to fit my eating schedule and regimens. The fishy stink in the house and having all sort of insects as my playmates still bother me, but not as much…

But the best part of it is that I’m starting to really warm up to the family. I’ve known Kristine for a while, but this is the first time I've had more than a polite greeting with her family. I like them, and they seem to like me, too. Especially the youngest kid, Jireh, who maybe like me a bit too much. He follows me around constantly, asking millions of questions: “What are you doing? Why is your gum pink? Why did you pop your gum? How do you pop it? Why are you reading?” A cute kid, but drives me mad sometimes.

Anyway, for lunch today Kristine and I went to a Japanese restaurant! She knows how much I like Japanese food in Singapore, so she took me to town, where there are a lot of different, “classier” restaurants. I treated her to lunch this time, since her family was housing me and I was using her room.

I ordered the ishiyaki hanitama (yikes, say that three times fast!). Haha, of course I had to ask what that was first, since there were no descriptions in English, but as soon as they said “eggs” and “crabmeat”, I knew instantly that that was what I wanted. It came piping hot to me in a claypot, and they poured a thick, sweet sauce all over. Here’s a quick pic:

Basically fried egg-omelette with mushrooms and crabmeat, but cooked into a shape of a dome. The sauce was some kind of sticky, red mixture, and I’m pretty sure honey and soy sauce were the main ingredients.

This was really very good, especially since they had all my favorite components: eggs, sweet, savory. The eggs were really well-cooked, so creamy but not runny! Though I could have done with less sweet sauce. It got a bit overbearing by the end, so if there ever is a next time I would order the sauce on the side.

Kristine ordered the pork mayonnaise and a chawanmushi:

I stole several bites of both. The pork mayonnaise was quite tasty! It was cooked teppanyaki-style and served on a sizzling plate, with onions, ginger, and thin slices of pork in a tangy mayonnaise dressing. Yum.

The chawanmushi (steamed egg custard) was delicious too, of course. It is really like a savory dessert, with the rich consistency of a pudding, but with all the umami taste of dashi broth and steamed egg. Inside was nested some crabmeat and fish cake.

When we came back home I took a 3-hour nap! The hot humid weather really makes you feel dull and stupid. The bad thing was, it was 7:30 pm when I got up and the church service starts at 8! I panicked about whether I would have enough time to prepare something for myself. I had planned on oatmeal, but obviously would not have enough time. I rummaged the fridge and decided to soft-boil two super-large eggs. I was just done with peeling them when people started arriving for the meeting…bringing food! Damn, if only I’d waited just a few more minutes! They brought pizza, so I had a piece of the seafood pizza with my 2 soft-boiled eggs and soy sauce:

Yes, pizza is a fear food, but I made myself eat it because I knew dinner had to be more substantial than 2 eggs and coffee. The pizza wasn’t that good…not enough cheese and toppings in my opinion, but I was happy that I got to conquer a fear food today again.

After the meeting it was almost midnight again. I had two heaping bowl of oats (gotta have my oatmeal fix), some gingerbread men cookies, some white bread with peanut butter and kaya. I sort of lost count on how many I ate; I was just trying to shove in some calories as I felt I didn’t have enough today.

03/04/2009: Day Three

I am damn proud of myself today. I believe my head has swelled up to the size of a giant inflated balloon out of pride and triumph.

The pastor and our host family and I planned to hike up the Air Itam hill this afternoon. It’s a small hill leading up to the Air Itam dam and overlooks the whole of Penang in one captivating scenery. But before that, we had to fuel ourselves with lunch.

Right up to half-way the drive to lunch, I had no idea where we were going. I was a bit antsy, but then Jim (the host father) suddenly informed us that he was taking us to somewhere famous for char kway teow called the Two Sisters*. My anxiety level shot up! For those of you unfamiliar with Southeast Asian cuisine, char kway teow is a greasy dish of fried flat rice noodles with different seafood items. It is both carb and fat-laden, and is considered a “trash dish”: chock-full of calories with very little nutrients. Seriously, search up that dish in Google with “calories” and “nutrition” and it’s one of the number one dish doctors do not recommend for healthy eating.

As panic swarmed in, I quickly consoled myself that I did not need to order char kway teow; I could always order something less scary…but then Jim went on to add that since this place was so famous for its fabulous heart-attack inducing dish, that was the only dish they sold in the damn place!

I realized I had no way out. I was being forced to face a major fear food, whether I liked it or not. At first I felt anger and animosity towards them. What the hell? Did they not understand that I was an-o-rexic? Did they not care how difficult and scary this was for me? Then I woke up. What the double hell? I told myself. You’re being freaking selfish. You’re a visitor in Penang, so of course they would want to introduce you to a Penang specialty. And isn’t this trip all about challenging yourself and conquering your food fears? Besides, if this place is that famous, this char kway teow oughta be damn good…

And it was good. Them two sisters really know how to fry up some great char kway teow. Here’s a snapshot of my dish:

It had two succulent prawns, some strong-tasting cockles, a bit of crabmeat, some beaten egg, and also some bean sprouts for extra crunch. The noodles were oily, but not dripping with grease. It was just perfectly fried over high heat for a bit of a crispy exterior while remaining firm and chewy inside. I actually finished the entire dish, save for one small mouthful.

Jim the liar. Turns out they do serve a few other things besides char kway teow. We ordered some appetizers:

Yam cake. A sticky, dense cake of rice flour and taro, topped with fried onions and shallots. I had several bites of this. Wish there were more taro in there, as I barely tasted the yam.

We also ordered otah:

This was freaking delicious! It is ground fish with coconut milk and lots of different kind of spices cooked in banana leaf. You might recall me eating this in Singapore, but this one was much larger, more fragrant, and the spice was much more complex. I sort of monopolized this one, and ate half of it! Heh, heh.

After that we climbed the Air Itam hill. The view over Penang was magnificent, but the weather was too freaking hot to enjoy it as much. I was all sweaty and sticky and felt uber-gross. So when we got home…I finally gave in and hopped into an icy cold shower. Yup, me, Sophia Lee the skinny girl terrified of the cold, actually enjoyed a freezing cold shower. I gave a scream at the first blast, but then…as the people here say, it was damn shiok! (Singlish for “cool” or “good” or “refreshing”)

So here’s a victory toast to a damn shiok day!

* The Two Sisters is named that because the char kway teow is fried by twin sisters. One of them fries them up in the morning, the other in the afternoon. Apparently their business is so good, they own three houses from their prosperous char kway teow business! So if you’re ever in the area, be sure to stop by to visit these sisters’ place!

03/05/2009: Day Four

Okay. Today was not a good day eating-wise. I kind of slipped, and I’m not proud of myself.

Lunch was just Kristine and I together in town because we needed to pick some stuff up at the plaza. We decided to try out this restaurant/cafe called Dome after perusing the menu they displayed outside. I was at first excited about this restaurant because of their all-day breakfast. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm ebbed away quickly enough.

First off, Dome neglected to include their prices on the displayed menu, and with good reason, too. R8.50 for a small cup of coffee? I could almost feel a hole burning in my wallet as I stared flabbergasted at these outrageous prices. But we’d already been seated and greeted by our waitress, so we couldn’t well just get up and bloody leave. But oh, how I wish we had.

The service was pretty horrible. The waitress’ answer to my question about what beef ranchers were was, “Two strips of beef.” And when I asked her if they had whole-grain options to their toasts, she shrugged and said, “I don’t think so.” Um, ok.

Anyway, I ended up ordering poached eggs and beef ranchers on toast. All for a hefty R15.50. Look at this miserable picture and tell me if it was worth it:

Straight away, I knew I was set out for a bad lunch. The eggs were tiny, the beef was marbled with fat and tendons, and the toast just looked dry and unappetizing. But the worst part? The eggs were completely overcooked! Now God knows I love egg yolks, but only if they are nice and runny. These were cooked all the way into dry crumbly orange cakes! I thought poached eggs are supposed to have runny yolks? What’s more, these eggs were totally unseasoned and tasteless.

I was majorly pissed off. One of my biggest pet peeve is having to pay big bucks for a crappy meal in a pretentious restaurant. I ended up eating just one and a half of the eggs and none of the toasts. I did finish the beef ranchers, though. They were the only thing that had some flavor, albeit a bit too salty.

Kristine ordered the chicken pot pie:

It came with a fat puff pastry on top of a pretty soupy creamy stew. I tried a bite. It was definitely better than mine, but just mediocre and definitely not worth the R18.00 she paid for it.

Now here is when the ED waters get a bit murky. I wonder if I should have forced myself to eat all of that even if I didn’t like it. Was it ED of me to get so upset over a bad meal and eating so poorly? I know if it had been my brother, he would have still finished the dish even if it wasn’t good just because he was hungry. If my parents were there with me, they would have lectured me and called this eating disordered, saying that I shouldn’t care about the taste so much as my main objective is to recover from ED and gain weight anyway. What do you think? What would you have done in my situation?

Anyway, the rest of my eats that day in brief form: yogurt, apples, and a banana at home to make up for the bad lunch. Vegetables, 3 extra-large soft-boiled eggs, and Thai fish soup before church service, then 2 bowls of oats, 3 soft-boiled eggs, tiny bite of donut after. God, I hate cramming in calories late at night.

03/06/2009: Day Five (Last day!)

Lunch today was at a Japanese restaurant again! After that disastrous lunch yesterday, we wanted to make sure we would have a great lunch today, so Japanese it was! I’ve decided that you just can’t have a bad meal in a Japanese restaurant, because I haven’t had one yet. We wanted to dine at Swensen’s at first, but the prices were outrageous so we decided on a more reasonably priced Junid Express.

I ordered the tori cheese:

I think tori means “chicken” in Japanese, because this was some grilled marinated chicken baked with a fat layer of mozzarella cheese on top.

The chicken was really juicy and tender, since it also soaked up the fat from the cheese.

Kristine ordered the chicken teppanyaki:

This was a set meal, with marinated chicken and vegetables done teppanyaki-style, along with white rice, miso soup, ocha, and some watermelon. I “stole” two pieces of chicken from her dish ^___^

Oh and you know what? I am totally liking the cold shower. So much, in fact, that I’m taking up to 3 showers a day. This blast of freezing water really refreshes me and rejuvenates my spirit, especially since this crazy humid and sweltering Malaysian weather is making me feel so slow and languid and sticky all the time.

And…I don’t mind the stink anymore. Nor having bugs as playmates. I’m learning to deal with the irregular eating schedules. And I’m really enjoying the company. My host family are terrific people and you know what? I think I’m really gonna miss them.

03/07/2009: Leaving day

Wow. Who knew I’d actually be kind of sad to leave Penang? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not planning for permanent stay at all, but still…as I said goodbye to the family in the morning, there was a bit of ache inside of me as I realized it would probably be years before I saw them again. Kind of funny because I recall that I was absolutely itching to hop on the plane back on the first day.

We took the 1:15 pm plane flight back to Singapore, so lunch was served on the plane. This time I actually had a choice of what I wanted: pizza or chicken with fried noodles. Both are major fear foods, but I chose chicken with fried noodles because for some crazy reason I thought noodles would probably be more nutritious than pizza. How was I to know that when they said “noodles,” they meant instant ramen noodles? And that by “chicken,” they meant some kind of processed deli chicken meatballs? Just take a look at this sleazy meal!

This was a double whammy on fear foods! I instantly wished I had chosen pizza instead. But then I remembered that this was the last day. I would be going back home, where I could cook nutritious, healthy foods for myself again. One meal of crappy MSG-laden, fried foods will not kill me.

So I picked up my crappy plastic fork and choked down my crappy meal. And guess what? I enjoyed every scrap of that crappy noodles and crappy chicken. The food snob in me was actually ashamed to have relished this ultimate junk food so much, but there was just something about the sheer crappiness of this meal that made the entire experience quite…sinfully tasty and pleasurable. Don’t laugh. But years of extremely health-conscious eating will do that to you.

Anyway, when I got home I immediately made something I’ve been craving in Penang:

My oh-so-simple but oh-so-delicious toasts of jam, cheese, and smoked ham.

And for dinner, I’m planning to have my all-time favorite comfort meal, Eggplasta Pudding. Damn, I’m pooped, and I have missed almost a whole week of internet, so I’m gonna indulge in some major blog-reading now. I’ll see ya tomorrow, when I’ll share a bit more on what I learnt from my Penang trip.

Oh, and today’s question of the day: What was the crappiest meal you’ve had in a restaurant? Did you still eat it and pay for it, or did you complain to the server?

P.S. Thank you to every one of you who left all these great, sweet, encouraging comments on my last post!!!

Last meal before “Execution Day”

2009-03-01T06:59:00.001-08:00

I’ve got a confession to make: there has been something that have been weighing heavy in my heart. A sense of imminent doom, a throbbing pulse of dread and fear. The source of this unpleasant emotions? I’m going to make a 6-day trip to Penang (a small province in Malaysia) tomorrow. It’s to renew my staying permit in Singapore, as I have a tourist visa and can only stay here legally for 90 days.

This is when it all gets rather sad and pathetic. The old, pre-ED me would have been ecstatic. I would have been fidgeting all throughout the upcoming week, not of apprehension, but of excitement of the new adventure ahead of me. New places, new people, new environment, new food…What fun, right? ……………..Not if you’ve got ED hovering all over you, taunting and jeering at you. No more comfort zone! No more control! No more rigid eating schedules! No more choices! No more safe options!

There are so many reasons why I dread this trip.

I won’t be able to cook for myself, but eat out or other people’s cooking all the time, which is a huge deal for me.
My normal eating schedule, rigid and punctual to the dot, will be torn apart and scattered into the air. I’ll have to eat socially for all three meals, so have to adjust my eating timetable to other people’s.
Not to be racist or prejudiced, but I find that Malaysians….well, they like to stare. I spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur (capital of Malaysia) before coming to Singapore, so I’ve noticed how much I am blatantly, unshamefully gaped at wherever I go. See, in America, people don't stare so openly because it's rude. Or maybe they're just used to seeing very skinny girls as eating disorders are getting so prevalent there. But here in Malaysia...it's a different story. Now I wouldn’t have such a problem with it if they were staring because they were mesmerized by my beauty, but I can read their minds in their aghast expression as they stare at my skeletal frame: Sweet Allah, is that Gollum from LOTR walking in the public streets?
I don’t wanna cause an accident like I nearly caused the last time I was in Malaysia because of the above reason. Seriously. This woman were riding the motorcycle with two little kids behind her. As they passed by me, all three of them, mother and children, whipped their head around in a double take and continued staring back at me, all while zooming full-speed ahead! They very nearly crashed into an oncoming car and there was this loud honk and screech. How freaking dangerous is that? I was so stunned myself that I stood still for a long while, wondering, Holy cow, did I just almost cause a freaking accident? I honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
Whenever I am faced with an unfamiliar environment and situation, my ED totally freaks out and suddenly I get deathly afraid of eating. I am so, so, so afraid I will come back losing back the few pounds I have painstakingly gained.

I’m sorry. I realize how stupid and unreasonable and pathetic this sounds, but I honestly cannot help these feelings and anxieties. They bubble up frequently and choke me up. The only tiny source of comfort I can find is the (struggling) faith in God that He has a purpose for making this trip happen and this trip can be another huge challenge for me to break through and overcome.

I don’t know how often I’ll be able to blog the coming 6 days, but I will try to update as often as I can. Apparently Penang is known as food heaven. It is famous for their street food. Perhaps I can actually share stories of how much I enjoyed them. Please, wish me luck~

Okay, on to today’s yummy eats.

I met Jingwen out for lunch again, and we ended back up in Shokudo Street Food Market! I think we’ve adopted this place as our favorite restaurant.

Of course, I ordered the omelet again, but this time with crab meat filling:

This was actually stuffed with real crabmeat!! I was really impressed, because I had been expecting the usual imitation kind.

Creamy, light, fluffy Japanese rolled-up omelet, stuffed with sweet chunks of real crabmeat, topped with dried bonito flakes, Japanese mayo, and okonomiyaki sauce. This is so freaking delicious, I don’t mind ordering this every time I come here.Will be trying another variation next time. Yes, indeedy, there will be a next time.

Jingwen ordered the oyako-donburi:

Basically chicken and egg and onions cooked in some kind of soy sauce and sake and dashi broth, served on top of rice. Jingwen didn’t finish this, so cleared the remainder for her. ^_____^ The egg is barely cooked before plopping onto the hot rice to finalize its cooking, so it stayed as a nice soft, moist, creamy consistency.

This was quite good, but sorry, my omelet wins taste-wise and appearance-wise, face-down.

When I got back I had a quick afternoon snack:

Ham/cheese/blackcurrant jam sandwiches, broiled in the oven for a few minutes until hot and melty. Yum.

Since today is the last day I’ll be able to cook for myself for a while, I decided to make dinner extra-special and tasty…I came up with another way to use up my leftover black beans! Kiki suggested spreading it as a black bean dip for sandwiches, and I thought that was a good idea. Also a couple of you mentioned black bean brownies, which I thought was muy interesante as well. So I decided to incorporate all of that into a single delicious stuffed french toast. Are you excited to see what I came up with?

I pureed about 1/2 cup of black beans with cocoa powder, cinnamon, coffee granules, black pepper, salt, and vanilla. The result was a bit dry without the moisture of pumpkin, so I dribbled in a few spoonfuls of almond milk until it reached the desired creamy, spreadable consistency. I then added a couple spoonfuls more whole black beans for biteable texture. Black bean-brownie spread, done.

Then I spread it on two whole wheat toasts, placed a slice of cheddar cheese on each bread, and finally thin slices of Granny Smith apples for crunch. Meanwhile I mixed together a mixture of almond milk, 2 eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt then dunked the sandwich into the wet mixture to soak up. Then I cooked it up over medium heat until piping hot and and with a rich, head-spinning aroma that I want to capture into my perfume bottle.

Here’s my “final” self home-cooked meal:

French-toast stuffed with black bean-brownie spread, cheddar, and apples with baked pumpkin skin “chips” and iced green tea.

I went drizzled maple syrup all over the sandwich while hot so that it’d soak up all that orgasmic nectar.

Here’s a look cross-section:

What a sandwich! I don’t wanna torture you guys, but I’m sorry, I just have to rave about how uber-delicious this was.

Let me describe just briefly by layers: Crunchy exterior; fluffy, rich, maple-infused bread; bittersweet chocolaty spread; gooey melted sharp cheese; crispy, tangy apples. What. a. freaking. awesome. combination. And you guys contributed to it, so give yourselves a pat on the back!

The pumpkin skin “chips” are just baked pumpkin skins leftover from the pumpkin cake I baked today for my pastor. Not so nutritious, but so very fun to eat! And since the skin is edible, I can’t bear to throw them away. This is just how I recycle them.

Right. I’m eating (and swooning) as I type this, so all this delicious food actually has really uplifted my moods. Not to mention that writing and being candid about my fears makes me feel so much better. Thanks for listening, you guys, though I may be so long-winded at times.

Well, beginning a new week tomorrow…A week of challenging struggles for me, but I hope it’d be an enjoyable week for all of you!

Since we’re on the topic of traveling, here’s today’s food-related question: Where is your dream place to travel food-wise?

I wanna thank my mama, my papa…

2009-02-28T06:37:00.001-08:00

Check this out, guys, my first blogging award! The kind and generous Lesley and Morgan passed this award to me:

Hee hee hee hee hee heee heeee~ I’m seriously blushing! Thanks, Lesley and Morgan! To be honest I’m not sure how this work…am I supposed to pass this award to others? In that case I would like to pass it to some really lovely people whom I am so thankful to have met through this blogging community:

— Jiaying: for her “Kreativ” use of her blog to touch on subjects not just on food but her little “insights” into life to get both my appetite and mind running!

— Pearl: Because she is the sweetest little angel I have ever “met” and she comes up with the most “Kreativ” and amazing and interesting posts!

— Kiki: Because she always has such “Kreativ” titles and her “Kreativ” dinners never fail to make me drool! Also, she reveals such a quirky, uplifting personality through her writing!

Of course I’d love to pass out this award to more people, but I’m limiting myself to three so there are more “Kreativ” bloggers left to pass around~

Well, I’m so glad to find that my black bean/pumpkin pancakes were met so positively by you guys! I really hope you guys try it out for yourselves though, because they truly are freaking amazing, and you can play around with it any way you want!

Just to prove my point, I made those pancakes for lunch yesterday again, but with a slight variation. This time I decided to go all savory. I pureed 1/2 cup pumpkin and 1/2 cup black beans together and mashed in a couple tablespoons of whole black beans like before, but this time, instead of the vanilla and cinnamon, I mixed in a few spoonfuls of coconut, garam marsala, and s&p. I originally wanted to add in curry powder, and went all the way to the grocery store to get it, only to come back buying everything else but the curry powder. I am such a scatterbrain sometimes!

After pan-frying the mixture, I topped the pancakes off with a slice of cheddar cheese and a sunny-side egg. Here’s the entire meal assembled:

Spicy black bean/pumpkin pancakes with cheese and egg, garlicky greens, and iced Orange Pekoe green tea.

This variation was really good, too! But how can it not? It is adorned with a perfect fried egg!

But…mid-bite, I just couldn’t resist adding a drizzle of maple syrup on top. I know I wanted this dish to be completely savory, but my sweet tooth begged for just a hint of sweetness and I ~~reluctantly~~ gladly obliged.

Mmm…Dense, chewy, with that chunks of whole beans mixed in for awesome play of texture…I loved the hint of coconut mixed in, and the garam marsala added a nice spicy kick to it. I was purring with pleasure with each bite….Puuuuurrrrrrr-fect!

Had youth group last night, so for I had to pack dinner to eat there. I had some raw carrots, chicken hotdogs, and two jam/ham/cheese toasts. And guess what? I finally discovered the secret to preventing the hotdogs from becoming wrinkly like an over-tanned 90-year-old beach bum! I just needed to bake those hotdogs twice. Here’s a picture of my successful, un-wrinkly hotdogs:

See? That’s the way I want my hotdogs. Plump and swollen like…

I had lunch out today with Liwen as we always do on Saturdays. Now I have to inform you that our lunches together are not just for social reasons. It’s an idea the ever-wise Liwen and Wengang suggested to challenge myself ED-wise by relegating my lunch choices to them. They will choose where to dine out, or the menu to cook at home. Because one of the ED habits I have is the need to control what and how I eat, this is a good exercise to wean me off from this obsession.

Today, Liwen chose a small local restaurant called 18 Chefs. It’s got quite a story; the owner and head chef is an ex-convict who went to study culinary arts in London after being released. He named his restaurant 18 because it’s the name of a well-known group of gang. Anyway, we actually met him! He fits the exact stereotype of an ex-convict: big, heavy-set, bald, sharp eyes, scars. This man cooked our food today, and even came out to ask if we were happy with our meals.

I ordered the 3-cheese omelette:

It came with fries and salad on the side, but I only ate the omelette. Try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to eat deep-fried foods yet.

This omelette was okay, but I was disappointed that it was so small. The insides were supposedly stuffed with mozzarella, feta, and Parmesan, but all I could detect was a whole lot of mozzarella and a teeny bite of feta. I have no idea where the Parmesan flew off to. So overall, I wasn’t so satisfied with this dish. I could have whipped up a much better omelette myself at home.

We also shared some garlic bread:

I ate two pieces of this! This is a huge feat for me because of a) I hate white, refined bread and b) Full-fat butter scares me. To be honest, I didn’t find these so tasty as well, but ate them just to challenge my ED fears.

Liwen ordered the cheese-baked pasta with minced beef:

Just your basic tomato-based sauce and beef with spaghetti, but baked with a layer of mozzarella cheese on top. Again, I could have made a better version myself in my kitchen.

Despite the rather disappointing lunch, Liwen and I had a great time talking. What I missed on the taste, I earned from our wonderful conversation together! I am so lucky to have a great, understanding friend like Liwen. She really treats me like a younger sister.

Oh, and I baked today! What is dense and brown and sticky?

Nope, not the stuff that comes out from the ass…It’s BROWNIES!~

I baked them this morning, and they were the richest, most chocolaty bars of sinful ecstasy ever.

Well, it’s the weekend, baby! Hope you guys all have a terrific one with fun activities and amazing eats! And here’s today’s question of the day: Do you prefer sweet or savory?

P.S. By the way, Lucky Taste Buds is having a BARNEY BUTTER giveaway! I've never tried this, and have always wanted to, so don't you go adding your name to the draw! Haha, just kidding~

The Sweet and the Salty

2009-02-26T07:16:00.001-08:00

Did I mention that I had begun writing about my experience in anorexia? Well, reflecting back each memory, meditating on it, and writing it down have so far been incredibly therapeutic and beneficial to me. Especially since I am taking a step back to view each section of my ED struggle as part of a larger and broader context, I found myself…viewing things in a different perception, with deeper insight.

I don’t need to reiterate how awful and abhorrent eating disorder is. Anyone who takes a look at my sallow complexion, my jutting cheekbones, and my thinning, flat hair can tell how undesirable this disease is. And have you ever met a happy anorexic? That two words are an oxymoron in itself. Most likely you wouldn’t even really notice an anorexic person (unless she/he is really painfully emaciated) because she/he would have withdrawn herself from all social circles. You never almost see a smiling anorexic unless 1) She’s smiling for the camera, “say cheese~” or 2) She met her calorie restriction goals for the day. Hell, it was only until recently as I laughed out loud with my friends that it hit me that I had not laughed that freely for years. Strike that – I had not laughed for years, period.

Yes, anorexia is definitely loathsome, unattractive, and abominable. But you know what? If given the chance to change things, I would still opt to leave things the way they are now.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re starting into the screen, jaw dropped in aghast, thinking, Oh, no, poor Sophia has finally lost it, all those excessive amount of eggs must have finally made her loony! But hear me out.

I believe nothing is coincidental. Everything happens for a reason, everything is under God’s control, and that there are many things which we humans with our third-dimension minds cannot ever understand in God’s grander scheme of plan. So yes, I do believe there is a reason why God let me go through all the struggles and pain of an eating disorder. For despite all the unpleasant consequences of it, it has also brought me tons of blessings. In a way, my eating disorder is a blessing in disguise. Let me just list out a few things I gained from ED:

I have gotten closer to God. I have realized how utterly weak and helpless I am without Him, and how much I need Him.
My relationship with my parents have gotten so much closer and intimate. I love them more than ever, and they understand and empathize me more.
I realized how incredibly loved and blessed I am. All the care and concern and love showered on me by my friends and family, their constant encouragements and comforts have touched me so much that I have totally changed the way I view my relationships.
I am unable to judge and look down on others now. I used to be arrogant and judgmental, but after realizing my own weaknesses and inabilities, I am no longer able to judge other for their own flaws and imperfections.
I have discovered the absolute importance of health. You can have an IQ of Einstein, but if you don’t have a healthy body to effectively use your brain and knowledge, what’s the use? God gave me responsibility over this body, and I tend to treat it well and make full use of its potential!
I used to be the most self-absorbed bitch. Okay, I can still be pretty selfish, but I am starting to care and commiserate with others more. In fact, I now have a life mission: to be healed completely from this mental disorder, and so be able to help many other people who went through similar struggles as me.

These are just a few of the many blessings I have received from my eating disorder. Yes, even with the worst situation, you can always find a few positive things out of it. You know why I love foods with the sweet and salty combination? Because if it’s just all sweet, it becomes sickening and saccharine after the first few bites, and if it’s just all salty, well, it’s just unbearable. But combine the two together, and you’ve got yourself the perfect blend…something interesting, something adventurous, something different, something satisfying. Same so with life.

I’m going all preachy again, but just wanted to suggest to you that no matter how bad your situation seems to be right now, as long as you are willing to search with a positive mind, you can always discover the silver lining in the stormy cloud. Remember that saying, What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger? So true.

Right. Have I bored you to tears yet? On to the lighter and tastier part of this post…The eats!

I’m so excited to share today’s lunch with you, because it’s the first time I cooked a meal with beans! I have always been wanting to give beans a try, given that it’s a nutrition powerhouse with complex carbohydrates and great protein. Plus, it’s dirt cheap! But for the most messed up reason, I was also quite reluctant because 1) ED thinks it’s too starchy and calorie-dense and 2) I felt pretty sure I would be disappointed with it. I’ve never been a bean-lover, so what makes me think I’ll like them now?

But for the sake of variety, and because I’ve been noticing in blogs how many people seem to enjoy beans, I bit back my hesitation and bought a small bag of dried black beans. I soaked them overnight and started brainstorming.

I didn’t want the familiar, usual bean dishes like black bean soup or bean salads. I wanted something a tad bit different, something that…well, spelled my name all over it. So of course I started playing around with ideas of breakfast…sweet…salty…By the next morning (today), I came up with: Black bean and Pumpkin Pancakes with Coconut.

I cooked the soaked overnight beans until tender, seasoned them with salt, then pureed half a cup of the cooked black beans with half a cup of pumpkin, some vanilla and cinnamon into a thick, creamy consistency. Then I added about a couple tablespoonfuls of whole beans to the puree, just for a mix of texture. I divided the mixture into two and rolled them into balls:

Then I flattened them into pancakes, and pan-fried them over a hot skillet until crispy on the outside. For the grand finale, a generous drizzle of maple syrup and showers of coconut snow:

Does that look amazing or what? The interplay of fragrances from the pumpkin, the cinnamon, the black beans, the syrup and the coconut…Oh glorious beans, how could I ever have doubted your brilliance? I am really liking beans now. I still have a lot of leftovers left though. Anyone have any suggestions on how to prepare them?

These pancakes were both sweet and savory and I loved the hidden crunch of the whole beans amidst the creamy pumpkin/black bean puree. The coconut added a whole new tropical depth to the dish.

Actually, these are not your average pancakes. There are no fluffiness or lightness in these cakes; in fact they are really dense and rich. Maybe more like a burger, but I’m calling them pancakes because that sounds more appealing to me. Hey, I created it, I name it. And I want them to be pancakes. So there.

I munched messily on my pancakes with a crunchy, refreshing side of carrots, cucumbers, and celery with a dollop of homemade ketchup:

Now, a couple of you asked why my cheese pancakes for afternoon snack were green. Well, they’ve always been green, but I guess you couldn’t see that because the exterior crust is nicely browned. But the batter is really green, because it’s flavored with pandan. Pandan is some sort of very frangrant plant used to flavor a lot of Southeast Asian dishes. Add that to your list of foods to try.

So here’s today’s afternoon snack:

And just to show you how the insides are green:

You can’t really taste the pandan that clearly, but I just love the fact that these pancakes are green. Green makes everything cooler. And these pancakes are certainly oh-so-cool.

Yay, long post finished. I enjoy writing each of my posts, but hope you have as much pleasure reading them as I do from writing them! And here’s today’s question of the day: Have you ever had something really bad happen to you, but later in reflection discover that there were some good to it too?

A Heinous Pancake Murder

2009-02-25T07:08:00.001-08:00

Wow, thank you so much, everyone, for your wonderful comments and encouragements. You truly made my day, and I totally had a big, Cheshire grin all over my face as I read each and every one of them! I think it’s truly amazing, how as long as you have the correct and optimistic perception, you will find that you can meet precious, beautiful people anywhere, everywhere (like you, dear fellow bloggers!).

I really do feel that what makes each of your day on earth meaningful is who the people you meet and how you interact with them and affect/is affected by them.Well, I can count on getting an A+ in this awesome community!

I have actually just started writing my “saga” in this eating disorder journey, which I have always been meaning to record down, but had pushed it off until now. I was hoping that I would be able to jot down a tale of success after completely overcoming this disease. But then I decided it was best to start writing while I’m still in the process of recovery when the pain and battles are still strong and real, and at the meantime remind myself of how abhorrent and horrible anorexia is, so that I’d be even more motivated to fight. I hope to be able to share my story someday soon.

But don’t worry, I’m not gonna dump my whole sob story on you…just yet. Nope, thankfully, today’s just gonna be about fabbity fab fab eats~

First, yesterday’s lunch, which was another play on my favorite flavor combination, sweet and salty. Many of you agreed in your comments that that’s your favorite, too, so I think you’ll like this one, especially the tofu-lovers out there!

That’s right, I had tofu. I used to dislike tofu very much, turned off by their bland taste and wiggly, eel-like texture. But then I tried them marinated and baked per Gliding Calm’s instructions, and discovered that with a bit of creativity and work, tofu need not be the pale, wet mush I used to loathe. In fact, they can be downright delicious!

So anyway, bearing in mind that tofu can be manipulated however way I like, I begun brainstorming for different ways to flavor them. Citrusy? Fruity? Herby? Spicy? Oriental-style? Western-style? Indian-style? In the end I decided I was craving something that was sweet, breakfasty, and that incorporated coconut. So I came up with: Maple-Coconut Baked Tofu.

This is how I prepared it: Just like Gliding Calm’s tofu, I sliced a 300gm of tofu and dabbed them dry with paper towel. Then I mixed together about a 1:2 ratio of dark soya sauce and maple syrup, dunked the tofu pieces into the mixture, and left them to marinate for a few hours while I yakked away into the phone. Then I dredged them in unsweetened, desiccated coconut to coat on all sides, slapped them onto a baking pan and baked them in a 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes. Here are a few pieces hot out of the oven:

MmHmmm~ They were absolutely divine. Seasoned perfectly with the soya sauce, with that lovely touch of sweetness from the syrup, and the fragrance and crunch of coconut!

The rest of the meal:

Maple-Coconut Baked tofu, sunny-side steel-cut oats, garlicky greens, Orange-pekoe iced green tea.

I dribbled some of the remaining marinade mixture into my oats, with a bit more extra maple syrup…

I had some of the tofu in with the oats, and others at the side to retain its crunchy exterior, with a drizzle bit more maple syrup for dipping…

Lunch was awesome, and I savored each bite slowly while catching up with some reading online. Dinner was packed, though, because I had Discipleship training. I packed some chicken hotdogs and sweet potato chips. Here’s a random picture of the hotdogs:

I love them charred like this, as it reminisces memories of the BBQs I used to have frequently with my family. But I don’t like how it always gets so wrinkly like a prune!

Lunch today was ultimate comfort food. After several hot, sweltering days, it finally cooled off with a big storm! The weather was surprisingly cool today, and I had a craving for something hot and comforting…and what is more comforting than a nice bowl of soup?

So I whipped up a pot of creamy pea soup, following the basic guidelines for my pumpkin soup, except with green peas instead of the pumpkin. For the side, I wanted some toasts for dipping, so I made garlic bread toasts!

I simmered a handful of peeled garlic in hot water until soft, then mashed them up with a few spoonfuls of Parmesan cheese and a sprinkle of salt and Italian herbs. Then baked them in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

Holy cow, the smell drifting from the oven was deliriously glorious! I was in sort of a garlic-high. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into them, and was really impatient taking this picture:

Snap, snap pictures, then crunch crunch into this lovely fragrant toast!

I swirled some yogurt into the soup, which made all the difference with its tangy addition. I actually dislike peas, but I really liked them blended into this soup, giving it a natural sweetness with its mild flavor, and turning it into this lovely shade of green! Somehow, the fact that this soup is green made it all the more appealing and tasty to me!

The sinking crust in a sea of green ocean…

Okay, the following picture is not for those with a weak stomach. It is a gruesome one, let me warn you…For I am guilty of pancake mutilation. I have a horrible way of eating my pancakes…

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Skinned and gutted and left to bleed to death. *Evil, maniacal laughter of the clinically insane*

Yeah, I have a weird way of eating things. For example, I also love to skin my bagels. I’ll nibble off the thin, outer waxy layer and then finally munch on the naked remainder. Same with sweet potatoes, potatoes, pumpkin, basically anything with some kind of edible exterior that I can have the pleasure of peeling off.

But I refuse to believe I’m the only one with weird eating habits. So here’s today’s question: What kind of weird eating habits/styles/patterns do you have?

When ED bites, bite a sandwich back

2009-02-23T06:48:00.001-08:00

Thank you, every one of you who left me a comment sharing my joy of new hair with me! I know it seems like a trivial, vanity thing, but it’s really sort of a sign for me that I am finally taking care of my body. So it means a lot to me to share this with you!

You know, anorexia is a horrible, treacherous disease. It sneaks up on you and wraps its arm around your shoulder like a friend at first, but then before you know it, it has opened up its jaws to swallow you up whole. The thing is, it would be so nice if that was the end of it. Instead, anorexia is like a crocodile. It doesn’t just rip you apart, it holds on to you with its deathly grip, stifling you, drowning you, starving you and leaving you to die a slow, painful death, then waiting until your body rots to a soft pulp before finally eating you up.

This is the worst thing about anorexia. You’re dying, but in a slow, dragged out process. You waste away, both mentally and physically, entrapped between the clutches of this inescapable illness, while you watch it rob every single thing away from you: your beauty, your social life, your hobbies, your personality, your integrity, your emotions, your happiness. Meanwhile, your family and friends can do nothing but gape at you in despair and quiet desperation.

Even now, as I am trying to recover from anorexia, I still have to fight off many of the old anorexic thoughts, fears, anxieties, and habits, which are seriously, in the eyes of a normal person, utterly stupid and ridiculous and unreasonable, but which are so physically painful and real to me. Some people say it never goes away, that even if you somehow manage to escape from its jaws, you still bear the scars for the rest of your life.

But I disagree. I believe complete healing is possible, for nothing is impossible for the Lord in whom I put my faith and trust. But I do know it is not to be overcome in one day, but a daily progress. Day by day, step by step, amidst both failures and victories, I know anorexia can be conquered. The worst thing to do is to disbelieve, to doubt and to despair and give up. Each day has enough troubles on its own, and I aim to live and enjoy each day to the best it can possibly be even in the process of this exhausting recovery.

And one of the ways to enjoy each day is…to eat good food, of course! Haha, sorry for dumping all that deadpan, weighty issues on you, but I just wanted to get this little itch off my chest. So far I’ve only been referring to my ED vaguely, but I think I should share a bit deeper occasionally as this blog is another tool for me to recover anorexia after all. So…ready for today’s delicious eats?

Today’s lunch should really be described with silence. Because I seriously thought I had died and gone to heaven, it was that good. The cause of today’s mouthgasm? Monte Cristo sandwich. Here’s how I prepared it:

I made a sandwich out of two slices of whole wheat bread, four slices of smoked ham, two slices of cheddar cheese, and a few slices of tomatoes. Then the part that makes it a Monte Cristo: I whipped together 1 whole egg, 1 egg white, 1/4 cup almond milk, drop of vanilla extract, cinnamon, dash of salt. Then I dunked the whole sandwich into this wet mixture and left it there to sit until it soaked up all the liquid. Then I heat up a skillet, sprayed it with PAM, and cooked up the sandwich until brown on both sides and smelling like heaven. With a drizzle of maple syrup:

Oh…my…freaking…God this was sososososososososososo good! Seriously, my eyes were popping and the syrup was dripping all over my shirt, but how could I be bothered when I shared the same fantastic smell as this amazing sandwich?

I loved how the bread soaked up the sweet syrup! I really love the play of the sweet and the savory…This had all the sweetness and comfort of french toast and pancakes, and also the substantiality and saltiness of a good ham and cheese sandwich.

Here’s the cross-section, for your drooling pleasure:

I was very sad when I reached the last yummy bite…

I also had a plate of celery, carrot, and cucumbers on the side to cleanse my mouth, with some homemade ketchup:

And for afternoon snack, another pair matched in heaven:

Mr. peanut pancake and Ms. cheese pancake got married, had their wedding in my mouth, and are now (a-hem) celebrating their matrimony in my stomach.

Oh, and I baked today! My Penang friend Kristine is leaving Thursday, so I baked pumpkin crumble bars for her:

Gonna bring it to Discipleship Training tomorrow. Hope she likes it! ^___^

Well, it’s Monday, the start of another fresh new week. Hope everyone has a great beginning to this new week! Here’s today’s question of the day: What is your favorite flavor combination? Sweet and spicy? Sweet and sour? Sour and bitter? Mine is sweet and salty, in things like peanut butter pancakes, oatmeal with syrup, sweet potato fries…and of course that Monte Cristo sandwich I had for lunch today! Mmmmmm….

HALLELUJAH my hair is a mess!

2009-02-22T06:39:00.001-08:00

Yes, you heard me right— Praise God, thank the Lord, sing Hallelujah my hair is a mess! Am I crazy, you ask? Well, I’m crazy-ecstatic that I actually have the hair to call my hair a mess!

One of the many unattractive physical repercussions of anorexia (including osteoporosis, sunken dull eyes, dry sallow skin, popping veins, deflated chest, guitar-ribs, multiple organ failures, irregular heartbeat, etc) is hair loss. To me this is one of the worst symptoms, because though I’d always been self-deprecatory towards most of my physical features, I had always been damn proud of my hair. They were long, shiny, soft and straight, and I loved putting them up in different styles with beautiful pins and clasps and barrettes.

But now…four years into this ED, I have lost 70% of my hair, and because of the lack of nutrition, they are no longer straight and vibrant, but frizzy and dull. Simply put, my head is now scarcely covered with wispy fried hair and there are enough patches of bald scalp to make any balding old man feel better about himself. Take that, Hollywood! Glamorous disease, anorexia is not!

But anyway, I was trying to tie the remaining miserable strands of lifeless hair into a ponytail, when no matter how much I tried to smooth my hair down, there were still random tufts of hair sticking out. I zoomed in into the mirror and on a closer look, discovered that they were new tufts of hair!!! WHOOOPPPEEEEEEEEEEE~~~~!!!!

So, yeah, I’ve been pretty much skipping about everywhere announcing the birth of my new hair, and even though there are these random short pieces of hair sticking out of my head like a porcupine, I can’t help grinning idiotically whenever I see them.

But other than just plain vanity, I am super-glad to see my head growing new hair again because it’s solid evidence that I am finally getting the nutrition I need! My body is recovering, it is healing, it is at last renewing itself! HIP HIP HURRAH for recovery! This just invigorates me with fresh motivation and hope!

Heh, sorry for going all excited and hyper about it, but I just wanted to share some good news, and also at the same time reassure all the other ED-recoverers out there that your body will absolutely restore its previous health and beauty as long as you give it the proper treatment it needs. You only get this one body in life, and all responsibility to take good care of it is yours. So keep on pampering it, everyone!

Okay, enough babbling, time for today’s eats.

Met Jingwen and Serene today, and because we liked it so much the last time we went there, we went to Shokudo Japanese Street Food Market again, but this time the one in Raffles City Shopping Centre.

I ordered the omelet again (I know, I know, but why mess with the top customer favorites?), but this time with salmon and onions as the filling:

We sat right below the air-conditioner, so my bonito flakes were actually dancing as I took the photo! Kind of creepy, like they were live dancing creatures or something…

But this was damn good! The best out of all the other omelet fillings I’ve tried. Here’s my ranking so far:

Salmon and Onions
Unagi
Mushroom and cheese
Asparagus and cheese

I usually hate mayonnaise, but this Japanese mayonnaise they drizzle on top with okonomiyaki sauce is so yummy I could probably just lick it plain…

My friend Jingwen ordered rosti with sausage and fried egg:

Crunchy, crispy, yet tender and still piping-hot! Here’s another close look into the rosti:

I wish I had the proper equipment to be able to grate my potatoes into those thin long noodles too! Think of all the fun dishes I can create…where can I get this equipment? Gotta put it in my birthday list. Haha!

Upon returning home, I picked up another old favorite:

Perfect starter to a nice afternoon nap!

Right, time for question of the day: Which of your physical features are you most vain/proud of? Why?

Well, that’s it for today, I’m off to have my dinner of Eggplasta Pudding and go obsess over my new hair some more!

The Pie Experiment

2009-02-21T06:37:00.001-08:00

I’ve had some interesting eats the past couple of days! I made two kinds of pies for both lunches…both savory, and both based on classics…with a twist, of course!

I’ve never been much of a dessert pie person…or any kind of sweet pastry, for that matter. Flaky, airy, buttery puffs of pastry, though appealing to the eye, does not appeal to my tastes at all. I would much rather bite into a dense chewy bagel than a flaky, airy croissant, and have never been one to understand why anyone would want to mess up a perfectly good fresh fruit by cooking it to mush with sugar and butter.

Savory pies, however, are a different matter. Pictures of homey chicken pot pie, quiches, pizza (yes, pizza is a type of pie), etc. never fail to make me drool, and I love how the flavors meld together in a more complex and intriguing way. Plus, the different play of textures in savory pies are much more interesting and fun!

So anyway, I decided to experiment and play around with the basic concept of pie in mind, and the results, I’m happy to say, were quite a success. Please stay patient with me while I elaborate…

When I say “pie,” which pie do you first think of straightaway? If you’re a good ol’ American, most probably the first pie that comes into your mind would be: apple pie. I’m not an American, but apple pie was what lodged into my mind as soon as I toyed with the idea of creating savory “pies.” I mean, it’s the classic of classics. But…how to make it savory and suitable to my taste?

Turn it into an eggy dish, of course!

So I decided to make an omelet…a la apple pie. I first sliced a Granny Smith apple into thin slices, and put it aside while I whipped up two whole eggs and two egg whites with milk into a creamy mixture. I heat up a skillet over low heat, then poured the egg mixture into it. When the bottom of the eggs set slightly, I immediately placed the apples in a decorative, pie-fashion all around and sprinkled about a tablespoon or more bleu cheese all around. As soon as the bottom was set nicely, I transferred the “omelet” into the oven so that the top would be cooked without burning the bottom. For the grand finale, I scattered some furikake on top just for some flair. The result, with sweet potato chips:

So pretty, isn’t it? I loved the little decorations!

The inside was amazingly fluffy and creamy, thanks to the low heating. The apples imparted a fruity sweet fragrance and flavor into the eggs, and the bleu cheese was a pleasantly sharp contrast. I loved how the apples were tender, but still retaining a bit of a crunch. And the touch of furikake on top was quite ingenious, if I say so myself! It livened up the whole dish with its great umami-factor.

I know this is a far cry from the traditional apple pie, but I’m still gonna call this creation omelet a la apple pie because that’s where I derived the whole idea from!

The sweet potato chips this time was perfectly crunchy on the outside and chewy in the inside. Love the combination of sweet and saltiness!

The next pie was a slight twist on another classic traditional pie, the shepherd’s pie (or cottage pie). This time I didn’t run too far away with my ideas, but basically stuck with the basic concept: potatoes over meat.

You all know what shepherd’s pie is. It’s an “upside-down” pie as in the “crust” of mashed potatoes is on top rather than on the bottom. But I felt that the texture play of shepherd’s pie is just too boring, with the soft mushy mashed potatoes and the soft meaty filling! Where is the contrast here? I love eating food with different textures, so with that in mind, I decided to substitute the mashed potatoes for thinly sliced potatoes instead, gratin-style.

For the meat filling, I cooked together ground pork, garlic, bell peppers, onion, and mushrooms in a store-bought Bolognese sauce. And for the top potato crust, just layered thinly sliced golden potatoes, and sprinkled some salt, pepper, Italian dried herbs, and several heaping spoonfuls of Parmesan cheese. Popped it into a 400 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes, and voila~!

Love the crispy potato crust!

The best thing about this meal was, I got to share! Every Saturday Liwen, Wengang and I make the point to have lunch together. Today we also invited our friend from Penang, Kristine, as she would be leaving soon next week.

This meal was quite the fancy affair! Liwen made some efforts to create a rather elegant tablescape:

She also roasted some tomatoes with olive oil, s&p, Italian herbs and slices of cheddar cheese on top:

And made a simple salad of iceberg lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and celery:

Saying grace…

Yum! Everything was delicious, and we finished every scrap of it! Seriously, all the dishes were licked clean!

Okay, this post is already long enough, but I can’t resist re-introducing to all of you two amazing fruits I had the last couple of days…

One of our youth group member, Vilon, treated us to durians yesterday! Most people gag at the pungent odor of this spiky tropical fruit, but I go on some sort of high off it!

Don’t judge a fruit by its appearance! (or smell) The durian may look spiky and dangerous-looking on the outside…

But inside is the most creamy, delicious pods of mouthgasm in the entire world! Don’t mess with the King of the Fruits!

And here’s another lovely exotic tropical fruit which I have been adding to my breakfast daily…

Red dragonfruit! So striking in my bowl of yogurt, fruits, and All-bran!

I love how the color stains into the creamy white yogurt…

It’s fun to experiment around with food, but so much more fun enjoyed with some good, loving friends! I still struggle somewhat with eating with other people, but am slowly starting to get comfortable eating socially again. I feel really thankful to have great people like Liwen, Wengang, and Kristine beside me, who instead of pressuring me to eat, create a relaxed, casual atmosphere with lots of great conversation to keep my mind off ED fears! BIG SHOUT OUT TO ALL YOUR PRECIOUS PEOPLE!

Wow, it’s the weekend already, where does time fly to? Anyway, have an awesome weekend, everybody, and here’s today’s question of the day: What is your favorite kind of pie?

Fish and “chips”

2009-02-19T06:25:00.001-08:00

I used to love all things deep fried: chicken, pork cutlets, corn dogs, tempura, you name it, I loved them all. But I was very particular about my fried foods. It had to be encased with some kind of batter. To me, anything tasted fabulous when it was dipped in some kind of batter, dropped into hot oil and fried until the dough crisped up puffy and golden.

In fact, the only reason I ate fried chicken was purely for that crispy coating. I would gnaw off all the outer crust with oil oozing through my fingers, only to toss the actual meat aside for my brother or sister to finish. My dream ice-cream, one that I was determined to create and sell and become a millionaire, was a rich creamy plain vanilla ice-cream mixed with bits of crispy batter, and then finished off with a fried batter exterior with a distinct fried chicken taste. I was gonna name it I-scream for Fried Chickin, and I was extremely proud of myself for this brilliant, ingenious, novel idea. I couldn’t wait to grow up and patent it.

Alas, someone seems to have beaten me to it and the moment I heard about the rising popularity of deep-fried ice-cream, my innocent kiddy dream was crushed.

Anyway, I have strayed away from fried foods by now, at first a conscious effort to avoid the unhealthy and undesirable consequences of indulging in too much fried foods, but now the image of fried chicken or fish fails to tantalize me in the least bit at all. Instead, I get quite angry about why they want to cook and destroy a perfectly good fresh fish by giving it a death bath in bubbling oil.

But sometimes…that childhood fondness of deep-fried batter calls out to me, and I find myself yearning to touch up with my old friend once in a while…

So today I decided to make fish and chips. But totally healthified, of course. I’m not about to destroy all the great nutrients in fish when I need all the healthy nutrients I can get to heal my body from 4 years of mistreatment.

This is how I made my version of fish and chips: I cut a ~5 oz fillet of halibut into 4 pieces, dipped them in beaten egg, dredged them in a mixture of homemade whole wheat breadcrumbs, Italian herbs, s&p. Then I popped them into a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven.

Meanwhile, for the chips, I used Japanese sweet potato, because I did not have any potatoes on hand and I much prefer the sweet taste of sweet potatoes. So I chopped up two medium sweet potatoes into thin round slices. I know the “chips” here are actually really fries, but I thought it’d be fun to make it potato chip-style instead. I sprayed the sweet potato chips with olive oil, salt and pepper, then popped those into the oven too.

The result:

Fish and “Chips”, with a healthy side of garlic greens and some homemade ketchup.

I definitely left the sweet potato chips in the oven a bit longer than I should have, but it was still delightful and perfectly crunchy and so much fun to eat!

Okay, I have to admit, despite my best efforts, the outer coating wasn’t as crispy and satisfyingly sinful as the real deep-fried stuff. But it was still plenty delicious, and I really loved the scents of the herbs with the crunchy breadcrumbs.

The insides stayed really moist and flaky and nice. I like how halibut has this natural sweetness.

My last fishy bite, with a dollop of my homemade ketchup.

I couldn’t decide on what I really wanted for my afternoon snack, so I made a nice array of all my cravings:

Mr. Bean Japanese cheese pancake, ham, cheese, and jelly sandwich, and some roasted pumpkin.

This wasn’t a snack, it was a feast! Yum-o~

I really am not much of a cook, but I’m really enjoying cooking up something different for lunch each day. I can’t believe I used to allow myself to be stuck in an eating rut and eat the same exact “safe foods” everyday. Not only was I fueling my ED and hiding in my comfort zone and limiting my source of nutrients, I was depriving myself of all the fun and pleasure of real food.

On that note, today’s question is: Do you tend to stick to the same food everyday? What are they, and what are some new foods you are willing to try?

Oh, and by the way: This article really caught my interest this morning…Finally, breakfast is getting the recognition it deserves as not only a morning meal! Go check it out and tell me what you think~

I am Fusion Queen

2009-02-18T07:04:00.001-08:00

I’ve had a lot of people ask me what type of cuisine I like. Only a couple of days ago Wengang and Liwen asked me if I preferred Asian or western food. I always get stumped there, because being raised in different areas with all sorts of cultures and cuisines, I had no definite cuisine I particularly preferred the most, just like there is no particular language I can call my mother tongue (I can speak, write, and read Korean, English, Chinese, and some Spanish, but have accents in all of them!)

I am Korean and raised in an Asian community, but my taste preferences are different from that of most other Asians. Unlike my parents, who will probably die if they didn’t at least have their mandatory bowl of rice and kimchi at least for one meal a day, I’ll be content to live off bread and cheese and omelets for the rest of my life.

I love western food: potatoes, breakfasty items with eggs, bread, steak, etc. But like most Asians, I sometimes find western cuisine quite tiring and bland, their list of ingredients limited, their sauces too rich and creamy, and their desserts way too cloyingly sweet for my Asian taste.

Now I love many Asian ingredients, such as ginger, soy sauce, bean sprouts, curry, taro, adzuki beans, green tea, and I adore spicy food – tabasco ain’t got nothing on good ol’ Singapore chili! I also love the abundance and variety of the produce and ingredients and spices in Asian cuisine. But I hate most Korean and Chinese food, I loathe anything with rice, and I never really enjoyed tofu.

So my favorite cuisine? I think it’s becoming clear, considering what I tend to eat, is that my type of cuisine is western-style Asian food. What’s the point of this self-absorbed babble, you ask? Well, I just thought it would be nice to do a brief explanation as to why the dishes I create are usually some sort of fusion. Plus, I like to talk about myself. Oh, and because today’s theme is fusion food.

Lunch yesterday was one such example of my Asian-western fusion preference. I actually did not plan this dish out in advance; I just threw together what I had to create a fast and simple dish to satisfy all areas of my cravings. I was craving both sweet and spicy, so those were the two flavors I incorporated into my Sweet and Spicy Omelet:

This was just a basic two whole egg + two egg white omelet made creamier with a splash of milk. It was the filling that kicked it up a notch. The sweet: Chopped apples and red onions.

The spicy: Two whole pieces of otah. And some cheddar cheese to bind it altogether with its gooey cheesiness.

Despite the rather weird combination of ingredients, I was pleasantly surprised with how tasty this dish was! It hit all my cravings, and I loved how the apples provided a slight crunch. They weren’t overly sweet, in fact they actually just really perfumed the omelet with a nice, fruity fragrance and flavor. The occasional bite of egg with the otah provided a nice spicy kick, toned down perfectly by the sweetness of the apples and onions.

And the cheese! I just love how it just oozes out between the fluffy egg pillow…What is an omelet without cheese?

I chowed down this lovely fusion omelet with some roasted pumpkin as well:

I had discipleship training last night, so dinner was packed: yogurt with mangosteen and pineapples, 10 mini chicken hotdogs, and four medium roasted sweet potatoes.

Onto today's eats! I realized I haven't shared my breakfast for quite some time, so took the pain to take a couple of quick pictures:

Plain yogurt with a few drops of pandan extract, and tons of fruits: Pineapple, apples, pear, mangosteen, grapefruit, dragonfruit. And a handful of Fiber One cereal on top with liberal sprinkles of ground cinnamon. Perfect for a hot and humid day in Singapore.

And then lunch! Lunch was another fusion creation. I felt like making a burger, but didn't have any beef at hand. So I just did a combo of ground pork and tofu, with lots of ginger and garlic and s&p to taste.

I "grilled" that up on top of a skillet, then put the burger into a bowl. Meanwhile, I whipped together an egg and some water with s&p, poured the mixture over the burger, chopped up some cilantro over it, then steamed the bowl until the egg was set. The result:

I'm calling it Grilled Pork/tofu Hamburg in Steamed Egg.

This was really very good. It was so moist and juicy because of the tofu, and because of its minimal ingredients, the flavors were fresh and simple. The egg was especially flavorful due to the juices from the burger.

I also baked a potato, but this time in a new creative spin: I made purple potato fans! Basically, just thinly slice the potato, just not all the way true, then sprinkle it with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake it in the oven until done.

I also spread some cucumber-chive cheese spread all over.

I absolutely loved how this turned out! It's so simple and easy! But the best part about it is that it gave me the best of both worlds: crispy chips and tender creamy potato both in one single potato.

The outside was really crispy and crunchy like potato chips, but the inside stayed tender and creamy like a regular baked potato. I was like a little kid, peeling off each slice, nibbling off the crunchy exterior before finally popping the soft interior into my mouth.

Altogether: Grilled pork/tofu hamburg in steamed egg, purple potato fans, cooked cabbage, and iced mango-green tea. And a very happy tummy.

For afternoon snack, I had two huge Jollibean peanut pancakes again. Yes, this time, both of them were BIG. I'm liking the Jollibean lady now. On the negative side, I totally ruined my appetite for dinner.

Well, as you know I always sign off with a question, and I present to you today's question with the fusion theme in mind: Do you prefer Asian or western cuisine? Do you like fusion cuisines? If so, what combination of which cuisines?

Just a few more days left till the weekend...Hang on there, dear fellow bloggers!

The Humble Potato

2009-02-16T07:27:00.001-08:00

Potatoes are truly one of the most humble and underappreciated root vegetable. It’s often overshadowed by other more exotic and exciting produce like beets and parsnips, and is almost always cast aside as a simple, forgettable side dish. Potatoes are ugly and knobbly. Potatoes are bland, boring, unadventurous

If you’re one of those who harbored such opinions on potatoes, allow me to enlighten you to the amazing, exciting wonders of the humble potato. First of all, did you know there are five thousand varieties of potatoes? Potatoes come in all sorts of sizes, colors, textures, and taste. You could make five thousand different potato dishes just by switching the variety alone!

But what I love most about potatoes is its versatility. This is when its less pronounced, milder starchy flavor actually works to its advantage, because you can prepare it in hundreds of different ways. You can: boil it, roast it, stuff it, bake it, grill it, mash it, puree it, sauté it, deep-fry it, braise it in soups, frittatas, casseroles, salads, wraps, sandwiches, pasta, breads, desserts, etc. There are seriously unlimited ways to jazz it up, and you can go into myriads of directions just with mashed potatoes as the base. It goes well together with practically every other food out there, but also taste delicious alone in its unadorned simplicity, seasoned with nothing but some good ol’ salt and pepper.

So today I demonstrate to you one of the millions of ways you can enjoy the humble potato by cooking up a rather elegant dish with two types of potatoes, the blue potato and the sweet potato: Two Potato and Apple Au Gratin. Okay, it’s not that elegant, but it’s got a French name so that kicks it up a class for me!

First I thinly-sliced two medium blue potatoes, two small Japanese sweet potatoes, and half a big Granny Smith apple:

Don’t you just love the color contrast? Already my appetite was getting titillated, and I hadn’t even started cooking yet!

Next I mixed together 3 tablespoons homemade whole wheat bread crumbs, about 1 heaping tablespoon of cinnamon, salt, black pepper, and a sprinkle of garam marsala:

I warmed up about 3/4 cup of almond milk then poured it over the dry mixture.

Then I layered half the potatoes and apples onto a baking dish and topped the first layer off with several slices of cheddar cheese:

Then layered the remaining potatoes and apples:

And finally, poured the milk mixture all over, then scattered a couple fistfuls of Parmesan cheese all around the top:

I popped this, covered with foil, into a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 40 minutes, then removed the foil and baked it for another 15 minutes. Here’s the result:

A close-up:

I had trouble taking a picture of this because of all the glorious steam! Seriously, the smell was awesome, almost like that head-spinning fragrance of apple pie what with all the cinnamon and baked apples, and my mouth was totally watering all over the place!

I sliced a big hunk of this gratin and made it into a meal with a fried egg, some mini chicken hotdogs and cooked cabbage, with a cup of iced mango green tea:

The verdict? The taste was even more incredible than the smell! I was pretty surprised at how much the minimal apple infused its tart sweetness into the whole dish. The cheese added a nice sharpness, and the bread crumbs, together with the almond milk and the spices, tasted like crumble topping to me! The texture was awesome, too! While the top layer was crisp and flaky, the insides were soft and creamy without being too mushy.

This dish truly hit and satisfied every of the senses taste-wise with all the sweetness (apple, sweet potato), tartness (apple and cheese), saltiness (egg and hotdogs), savory-ness (cheese, yolk, hotdogs, potatoes), and spiciness (cinnamon and garam marsala), and also texture-wise with all its crispiness, flakiness, creaminess, chewiness, and crunchiness.

I just love the slight char on the hotdogs…

It’s weird, but they totally inflate like a swollen balloon at first when cooked, then deflate into a wrinkly old prune after being cooled. I wonder why?

Well, I hope I’ve convinced you of all the overlooked splendors of the humble potato. Never take anything for granted! For me, it’d be a sad world without potatoes…

For afternoon snack, I pampered myself with double the portion of the best of both worlds:

Pancake and peanut butter! Yum yum~ It’s worth flying all the way over to Singapore just for this little piece of heaven~

The last bite of crumb is always a sad affair…

Alright, I’m off to chow down a massive bowl of oatmeal for my midnight snack, but I leave you with this question in mind of today’s post topic: What is your favorite kind of potato, and what is your favorite way to prepare and eat them?

Have a fabbity fab fab week, everyone!

Roses are neon pink, cheeses are blue…

2009-02-15T06:35:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great Valentine’s Day!

I received my first Valentine’s rose this year! I’ve never been one to celebrate Valentine’s Day (as I have yet to have grabbed myself a good boyfriend) except to occasionally receive chocolates and candies from friends. So I was pleasantly surprised when Wengang and Liwen presented me with a random pink rose last night…A rose plush, that is!

Yup, it’s not a real rose, but I like this one much better because I get to keep it and enjoy it much longer than a fleeting, withering real rose! What’s more, it’s a funky bright pink!

It’s silly, but this small act of affection really made me happy. I feel so blessed and thankful to Wengang and Liwen. Not only have they been the most gracious hosts to me by letting me stay at their house during my stint in Singapore, they have practically treated me and cared for me like a little sister.

I hope you all realized once again how many loving and precious people are around you this Valentine’s Day too~

Okay, on to today’s eats.

I’m quite proud of myself today: I had full-fat, dense cheese with lunch: blue cheese! (Or is it bleu cheese? Anyone wanna enlighten me to the correct spelling?) One of my lovely blog readers, Nanete (who doesn’t own a blog herself), asked me if I ate any other cheese besides Mozzarella and Parmesan and low-fat American cheese.

My answer was that I’m a cheap Asian girl and try to buy the cheaper cheese. This is partly true, but then I realized that there was another reason of which I had been purposefully unconscious: mozzarella and Parmesan are pretty low-cal cheese compared to other cheeses like cheddar and brie, so of course my ED reached for them more readily!

Well, recently my local grocery store has been promoting a good sale on blue (bleu) cheese (one of the most calorie-dense cheeses), so I no longer had the excuse of saving money to prevent myself from trying out another challenging food. So I bought it, and it has been sitting in my fridge and has been sitting there like a sore in my eye for a few days. And today I decided to finally do something about that sore.

I’ve only ever had blue cheese in my salads, but didn’t want to stick to ED-safe, low-calorie things like that. So I decided to incorporate it into a sandwich. I made: Blue Cheese and Apple Open-faced Sandwiches and my usual Sweet Ham and Cheese Sammie.

The ingredients were minimal and simple for the blue cheese and apple sandwiches. I just popped pieces of whole-wheat bread with chunks of blue cheese on top, and when the bread got toasty and the cheese melty, spread the cheese evenly around the surface of the bread. Then topped it off with thin-sliced Granny Smith apples.

It tasted grrrrrrrreat! The blue cheese was so pungent and flavorful and creamy, and it matched incredibly well with the sweet tartness and crispness of the green apple.

I really patted myself on the back because not only did I conquer my full-fat cheese fear, but I also increased my intake from my usual two sandwiches to three! YaHOO~

And then afternoon snack I had a very happy time with my old friends again:

Peanut pancake and Japanese cheese pancake!

I have to confess something here: Because of the higher-calorie lunch, I chickened out and planned to just get one pancake for snack. But when I ordered my peanut pancake from the Jollibean store, the lady gave me a smaller pancake than usual! Okay, it wasn’t that much smaller, maybe about 90% the size of the usual ones, but I got pissed. Pissed enough to buy another pancake! Haha!

This is a huge breakthrough for me, because usually I would grab any excuse to eat less, and would have been super ecstatic and relieved to be given a smaller size pancake. Thus I was pretty surprised at my irritation and greed. Hee hee. I like being greedy, at least for now.

I remember when I used to be a selfish greedy little girl, getting into petty little fights with my siblings over who got the larger serving of snacks. But ED has really twisted things around and instead I began fighting to get the smallest piece! (Or any at all) So you can see why I’m glad to recover my greedy little self again!

That’s it for today, I am having another of my Eggplasta pudding for dinner right now, but you already know what it looks like so no picture~ But, let me end this post with this pretty cool picture of ME in the glow-in-the-dark room of the Singapore Zoo!

I like how my face still remains anonymous…This makes me feel so…mysterious and cool, like an FBI international spy or something…But actually, in reality, I just look like a perfect replica of one of the glow-in-the-dark skeletons they were selling in that room. Grrr. Must gain weight.

Dine out fresh, dine in leftovers

2009-02-14T06:28:00.001-08:00

Wow. Sorry for being AWOL for a few days, but I’ve been quite busy…But lots of pictures today to make up for that! I’ve been eating out consistently, so a lot of new foods introduced…Of course new food and different eating schedules throws me off and sets ED into a frenzy, but I am quite content with the way I handled it.

So, I left off on Thursday. Thursday’s lunch was a mix-up of all the leftovers I had in the fridge. I had leftover homemade pumpkin soup, leftover steel-cut oats, and leftover toman fish fillet (aka snakehead). I threw them altogether to make savory pumpkin oats and marinated fish with egg.

I cooked the oats in the pumpkin soup, while leaving the fish to marinate with some onions and mushrooms in my favorite marinade mixture: soy sauce, vinegar, sake, tons of ginger and garlic, sweetener, black pepper. I then pan-fried the fish with a cracked egg, and lunch was done in less than 10 minutes:

Altogether with a side of garlic stir-fried greens.

The fish was perfectly cooked this time, staying moist and tender and flaky inside:

Soooo flavorful! This marinade seems to work with everything! So far I’ve tried it with tofu, vegetables, pork, and fish. It’ll probably work really well with grains, too!

I like to plop the fried egg on top of the oats and let the yolk soak into the grains. Kicks it up into a whole new ethereal level!

I had dinner out with my old friends from secondary school. We all used to be in the same gymnastics team, and share fabulous, poignant memories of slacking off and getting the worst points ever in every gymnastics competition. Anyway, we went to Shokudo Japanese Street Food Market again! Remember how I raved about it the last time?

This time I got to try several more new dishes, as we ordered several different dishes to share!

Dried shrimp fried rice, done teppanyaki-style:

I hate rice, and probably always will, but I did try a bite out of this. It was actually tastier than the typical fried rice you get from a Chinese take-out, with each grain actually having a bit of a char to make it more flavorful and “fried".”

My friend also ordered the Japanese curry rice with tonkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlet):

I did not try this, because I hate Japanese curry. To me, curry should be as fiery and spicy as possible, but Japanese curry is just too sweet and mild for me.

Also, some grilled skewers:

The top one is takopachi, which is octopus balls made out of some kind of floury batter and chunks of octopus, drizzled with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise and finished off with a scatter of dried bonito flakes. This was okay. It could have been better with more octopus and less batter.

The bottom one was a mix of grilled seafood and meat: scallops, beef chunks, and bacon-wrapped shrimp, all marinated in some kind of sweet soy sauce marinade. I tried one of each. They were good, but not too impressive. Just your average grilled seafood and beef.

We also ordered rosti with sausage:

I don’t know why, maybe I’m just being an immature pervert, but big fat sausages always make me giggle. Hee hee hee~!

The sausage was juicy and sweet and savory at the same time. I’m not sure what kind of meat the sausage is made from, but I think it was chicken. The rosti was awesome! It’s just like hash browns, but the potatoes were shredded into long skinny noodles, so it was so fun slurping up the fried crispy potatoes like noodles! The copious amount of oil oozing out freaked me out a little, but it was just so tasty!

And lastly, my favorite:

Omelet again! But this time with mushrooms and cheese. Of course I was the one who insisted on ordering this!

It was stuffed with lots of shitake mushrooms and mozzarella cheese. I have to admit, I totally hogged this one and ate more than 70% of it. My friends seemed to favor the curry though, so everything worked out well.

Okay, on to Friday! I was really busy this day because I went to the SIngapore zoo with my Penang friend in the afternoon, then straight to church youth group in the evening. So lunch was another mix-up of leftovers, almost the same as the day before: Pumpkin savory oats with fried eggs and otah:

Otah is this delicious fish paste ground with coconut cream and all sorts of spices, then stuffed into banana leaves and grilled/BBQed over an open flame. This is what it looks like in the banana leaf:

But of course you have to remove it from the leaf to eat it:

The last remaining yolk, running its savory gold nectar into the pumpkin oats:

I ate dinner at youth group, so no pictures, but I had: cooked cabbage, raw carrot sticks, chicken hotdogs, and sweet turkey sandwiches. Hurried and hasty, but so so yummy~

And now on to today, finally! I ate out with Wengang and Liwen for lunch today. We went to Ikea for lunch! Apparently Singaporeans really love Ikea food and sometimes go there not to shop but to eat! And I could see why, the food here was quite delicious! Here’s what we got…

Swedish meatballs with gravy, blackberry(?) preserves, and boiled potatoes:

The meatballs were really juicy and flavorful, and I found the gravy excessive and unnecessary. The fruit preserves added a nice touch of sweetness, though.

This one was my favorite. The herring platter:

Fresh herring, prepared in three different ways. I’m pretty sure they were raw, and either made ceviche-style, or pickled. They were great, and full of flavor!

We also ordered poached salmon with potatoes and broccoli:

This one was just okay. The salmon was nicely cooked, but boring. I don’t know what that sauce was, but it did nothing.

And we also had penne in tomato sauce and chicken wings:

I hardly touched both of them, because I’m too lazy to gnaw at chicken wings, and that pasta…well, it simply tasted horrible. None of us liked it, so I swear it’s not my ED talking!

PHEW! I’m finally done listing my foods for the past few days. Sorry for the long post. I promise to update more frequently.

Well, I hope all of you have a great weekend, and once again I leave you with a random quick question: How do you use up your leftovers?

Porky for dessert

2009-02-11T06:19:00.001-08:00

Yes, you read the title right. Pork…dessert-style! No need to freak out, I did not go all iron chef and whip up pork ice-cream or something. But this pork dish I created yesterday for lunch was altogether innovative, decadent, and oh-so-chocolaty enough to make me feel like I was indulging in some sinful dessert.

Yup, that’s right. Chocolate. Oh, no, don’t give me that disgusted look before you hear me out (or read me out, either way)! Please, give this dish a chance with an open mind and an anticipative stomach, and I promise you, you will be equally bowled over by this meal as I was.

Remember when I was asking for pork recipes? The previous attempt on cooking pork was quite a success, even without a recipe, and I was encouraged enough to just wing it again and slap something together with the leftover piece of pork tenderloin…and came up with…

Mocha-Coated Pork with Raspberry Sauce:

Look at that! Just look at that! You can almost imagine it to be a slice of rich dark chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. And the idea was just so simple and easy! I just mixed together some cocoa powder, cinnamon, ground coffee, and black pepper, then rubbed it all over the pork tenderloin. I let it sit for a while to absorb all the flavors, and then pan-seared it on a skillet over high heat, and then finished it off in the oven. Meanwhile, I just warmed up some raspberry preserves with a spritz of lemon juice. You want to let the meat sit for a while before cutting to keep the juices in (something I learned from watching Food Network. Who says TV can’t be educational?).

I had this chocolaty pork steak with some roasted baby potatoes and a sunny-side egg.

Let me tell you how. freaking. phenomenal. it was. The cocoa-coffee-cinnamon coating was thick and luscious and velvety, and did a great job sealing in all the juice of the pork inside. The raspberry sauce was the perfect complement to play in the sweet vs. savory. It wasn’t overly sweet, but sweet enough to round off the rich bitterness of the cocoa, even leaving a bit of a pleasant tang with its slight fruity sourness.

I am definitely making this over and over again. Who can resist chocolate for lunch? I urge you all, dear fellow food bloggers, to give this dish a try! For those vegetarians out there, I’m pretty sure you can create the same sensational dish with meatless “meats” or tofu. If you ever give this a try, please let me know! (Whether you love or hate it)

So yesterday’s lunch was a huge success, but sadly, today’s lunch was…to put it mildly, horrible. I had pork again, but this time it wasn’t prepared by me. There is this food stall selling rice and different mixed dishes nearby where I am staying, and each time I passed by I would eye the different dishes with curiosity. They’re the non-fancy, home-cooked style food that Singapore eat at home, and quite different from those typical Chinese dishes you’d find in a restaurant. Well, today I decided to try one of the dishes. I though, hey, I’m in Singapore, so I should try what normal Singaporeans would cook on a typical day at home. So I ordered this:

I don’t even know what it’s called. It’s a dense, steamed patty made up of ground pork with some gingery-garlicky flavor. And it was absolutely disgusting.

Let’s take another look at it, cross-section:

You see those white little things? I thought they were onions, or water chestnuts or something. Not so. When I put a huge bite into my mouth, all I tasted was incredibly meaty (not in a good way) pork…and fat. And tendons. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

Basically, this patty was made out of ground cheap pork scraps! Barely half of this was actual meat. Most of it were unidentifiable bits from parts of a pig that I don’t even want to know about.

I tried to finish it, I really did. But I could only manage half of it before I thought I would hurl. So I put it aside, and had a few more of these baked pumpkin:

…and a bowl of yogurt with tangerine, not pictured.

I was quite sad about my disaster lunch, but at least the baked pumpkin was super-sweet and delicious!

For afternoon snack I had sweet ham sandwiches again:

Both had two slices of smoked ham and a slice a cheddar cheese, but one had a base of strawberry jam, the other applesauce. I think I like strawberry jam better.

Love that cheesiness!

So that’s the little adventure I had today. And to keep me amused, I’d like to leave you all with this question: What was the most disgusting thing you had ever eaten?

Have a great rest of the week, dear bloggers, and hope you avoid all disastrous meals!

Ham Sandwich, sweet and savory versions

2009-02-09T06:30:00.001-08:00

So. I finally found some good deli meat at a gourmet supermarket that a) didn’t have an unnaturally bright neon color and b) had ingredient list and nutrition facts on the package so I can check for any undesired additives. It’s sad and alarming how difficult it is to find real food these days. More than 70% of the products in any given grocery stores are processed, refined crap devoid of any nutrients and stripped of all freshness!

Okay, enough ranting. On to lunch.

It’s quite ridiculous how happy this simple lunch made me. As you’ve guessed it, I had ham sandwiches. Deli meat sandwiches, in my opinion, are poor, mistreated and underappreciated food. It’s the kind of food you just slap together for lunch when you’re in a hurry. The kind you reluctantly assemble together when there is nothing else in the fridge. The kind you say glumly, “Oh, just a turkey/ham sandwich” when a friend asks you what you had for lunch.

Well, this girl truly appreciates a good ol’ deli sandwich. So much that she searched high and low for edible ham slices just so she can make herself a sandwich at home. Deli meat sandwiches, weep no more. This post is dedicated to you.

I made two versions of sandwiches: one sweet, one savory. Here’s the ingredients in the sweet: bread slathered with strawberry jam, topped with smoked ham and a slice of cheddar cheese:

The savory: bread topped with tomato slices, ham, and another slice of cheddar cheese:

I popped both of them in the toaster oven for a few minutes so that the bread would get toasted, the cheese will melt, and the tomatoes will burst with its natural juices. Easy breezy. Done in less than 10 minutes, including oven-broil time.

I usually throw away the crusts (bad habit), but this time I had a cup of almond milk to dip the crusts in. Soup would have been nice, but I had none at the moment.

On the side I had a plate of raw vegetables:

I ended up throwing away the cucumber because it had a strange bitter taste. Yuck.

I also had a bowl of yogurt with grapefruit, mandarine orange, and cinnamon:

Oh. Guess what? I think I’m actually getting pretty sick of sweet potatoes. Amazing, right? But I’m kind of glad because now I can try other things. For afternoon snack today, instead of my usual baked sweet potatoes, I had two types of pancakes:

Jollibean peanut pancake and Mr Bean Japanese cheese pancake! On top of a Chinese dictionary (I was doing some translation work)

Check out the lovely gooey pale cheese filling!

And nothing beats the combo of fluffy pancake and peanut butter! Yum~

Anyway, I was recently tagged to list 25 Random Things about myself, so I thought it would be a fun way to give you guys a little bit more (useless) information about myself:

25 Random Things about ME

I almost drowned once in a shallow swimming pool while I was doing some kind of weird gymnastics move in the water. Picture a stupid little girl stuck in an awkward position with her head submerged in the water and her legs sticking out in the air. Embarrassing? Hell yeah.
I used to pretend to be a mermaid in the pool (Strangely, despite almost drowning 2 times, I still loved to swim)
I always loathed Cinderella and I always will!
I once freaked out and treated a guy horribly because he had the nerve to like me back
I want the Grinch for a pet. His furry fingers never fail to amuse me.
I concentrate best when studying in noisy, busy areas like McDonald’s and Starbucks.
I was escorted kicking and screaming out of Northwestern University to be hospitalized by two hefty policemen (ok, I wasn’t kicking and screaming per se, but the policemen part is true)
I used to want to be a teacher to the blind and deaf (Fortunately for the dear handicapped, I finally admitted I have neither the patience or temperance for such a job)
The very sight of white rice makes me want to puke.
I crave a good old Cabbage Patch Kids doll.
My childhood hobby was picking fights in the playground.
Guys in uniform make me swoon.
All guys should wear a suit and tie. Always. Even in bed.
I don’t understand girls obsessed with shoes and sexy lingerie.
What is the point of a pedicure when nobody notices them?
My hair used to be the only feature about me I was proud of. Now it’s 70% gone due to ED. Glamorous disease it is not.
I dream of pitching a tent in a library or bookstore and just…camping there.
I’m horrible in any sports with a ball.
I’m terrified of home-cooked meals prepared by others but like to eat out in restaurants (does this make sense at all?)
I want to hike the entire Appalachian mountains someday.
I had a HUGE crush on Pippin from Lord of the Rings.
Ever since ED, I can’t stand skinny celebrities and actresses because of the bad message they send out to other women (unless they’re just naturally skinny, but seriously, very few of them are)
I love making fun of the contestants in America’s Next Top Model.
I’m absolutely terrified of boredom.
My biggest fear is wasting time.

Well, now you know something about me. I’d love to know more about you guys, too, so consider yourself tagged!

Smiled down by the Japanese cuisine gods

2009-02-08T06:41:00.001-08:00

The Japanese cuisine gods are smiling down on me. The comment I made in my previous post about how much Japanese cuisine was becoming endearing to me must have pleased them very much, because today I found the perfect place to fuel my Japanese cuisine fetish!

I went out for lunch again today with my friends Jingwen and Serene, and they took me to this awesome food court…with a Japanese theme! It’s called Shokudo Japanese street market, a branch off Shokudo Pasta where I had lunch once with Jingwen and Serene also. Basically, the whole area is designed to look like the streets of a traditional, old-fashioned Japanese village with lots of individual stalls selling all kinds of Japanese street foods.

The deco was really interesting, bright, and colorful with traditional lanterns adorning the walls:

Here’s a “street corner”:

The choices were overwhelming (in a good way): Ramen, udon, soba, sushi, sashimi, omelets, okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes), Japanese-style pizza, Japanese-style pasta, omu-rice, dons, nabe (Japanese hotpots), porridge, yakitori (grilled skewered meats), teppanyaki side dishes, Japanese-style rosti (hash browns), Japanese-style burgers, desserts, drinks…I know I’m missing more, but I’m already giddy with delight over all the delicious choices!

I had no idea what to order; I just truly wanted everything! But Serene, my dear friend, recommended the Japanese omelets. Made-to-order eggs fried on a fun-shaped rectangular pan? What’s there to object? What can go wrong with eggs?

There were a lot of options for fillings, like: mushrooms and cheese, crabmeat, tuna and onions, salmon and onions, unagi, and about 10 other more I can’t remember. I ordered the asparagus and cheese. Serene ordered the unagi.

Here’s a picture of that lovely omelet stall:

It took a while for our omelets to be made, because there was only one little guy on the stove and he made each omelet fresh in front of our eyes and the eggs had to be cooked gently to retain its creaminess. But the result was absolutely worth the long wait!

The world’s best asparagus and cheese omelet, topped with a drizzle of mayonnaise and bonito flakes!

The bonito flakes were an added bonus, and it was the most perfect topping for eggs with its light, airy crispiness and rich, salty flavor of dried fish. Mmm….umami!

The inside was sooo creamy and oozing with chewy gooey mozzarella cheese and had all the great crunch of sliced asparagus!

Serene shared a piece of her unagi omelet with me:

I liked this one a lot too! Sweet and tangy pieces of juicy unagi hidden inside the eggy pocket…No cheese, though.

Street food is my other favorite type of food besides breakfast food. There is just something about stopping by a stall in the streets and having the opportunity to see your snack or meal assembled or cooked right before you. You receive that fresh, made-to-order, piping hot meal with eager, anticipative hands, and there is that amazing connection between the customer and the cook that you can’t get in a restaurant. Also, most street foods are fast, simple, and fuss-free. Unpretentiously casual without all the fancy and ostentatious stuff, but still absolutely delicious in its authenticity and deceiving plainness.

I’m definitely returning to this amazing place again. What would you get if you were me? What is your favorite type of street food?

Trying out Different Protein Sources…

2009-02-07T06:00:00.001-08:00

I always find lunch the easiest to challenge myself, to try something new. Breakfast is usually hurried, and I’m usually not very hungry in the morning, so I stick to old favorites that will spur up my appetite and refresh me for the day. Snacks are usually the stuff I’d like to have for every meal (oatmeal, sweet potatoes, etc) but are restricted to only snacktimes for the sake of variety. And dinner…I’m usually too tired by the evening, and lack motivation to get adventurous in the kitchen. So that leaves lunch as the meal in which I try to step out of my routine foods and try something new and have fun in the kitchen at the same time.

These days, I’m trying to add different protein sources into my diet besides eggs. The thing is, because I only started cooking at the start of my ED, I seldom had any experience cooking meats and stuff because at that time I was shunning most animal products (too much fat and calories!) But now that I am trying to recover from ED and normalize my relationship with food, I’ve decided to slowly incorporate different protein sources.

Yesterday’s choice was pork. I had been eyeing the pork section of my local supermarket for a while, but had not had the guts to purchase it until now, just telling myself, “Someday…” But then yesterday I finally decided it was time and that I was going to put that “someday” into action.

I didn’t have any recipe to start out with, but imperiously decided to just rely on my own culinary common sense to cook it. I decided on my favorite marinade again, the one I used to marinate my mushrooms and onions here: soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, sake, ginger and garlic, pepper. I marinated the pork tenderloin in this mixture with some mushrooms and onions for about an hour.

Then I pan-seared it both sides on a skillet over high heat, then popped the whole thing into a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 7-8 minutes. Here’s the result:

It smelled really really good! The marinade really soaked into the meat and made it extremely flavorful. Unfortunately, the meat was rather tough! I think I probably left it in the oven for too long. Maybe next time I’ll just skip the whole oven thing altogether. Thankfully, the tried-and-true delicious marinade saved this otherwise mediocre piece of pork into something quite delicious.

I had this pork tenderloin adorned with a piece of fried egg. Honestly, what better garnish is there than a perfect runny fried or poached egg?

I also had some raw carrots and cucumbers on the side. Altogether:

I should probably have checked out some pork recipes before attempting to cook one, but was still pretty pleased with how it turned out. I still have a bit of pork left, and am brainstorming for my next porky meal. Anyone have any good and easy pork recipes?

I had lunch today out with Liwen, Wengang, and Kristine, my dear friend from Penang. We went to Sakae Sushi restaurant, a popular Japanese chain restaurant in Southeast Asia, at the Changi Airport.

I just love Japanese cuisine. I never appreciated it much back in the U.S because most Japanese restaurants only offered the same old sushi and sashimi. But the Japanese restaurants here in Singapore have so much more options!

Anyway for starters we had some steamed edamame…

And two different types of sushi:

I ate only one piece of sushi, the one on the right wrapped with fried bean curd skin, because I have an aversion towards white rice. Truthfully, I really did not want to eat it, but didn’t want to dampen the atmosphere by refusing it (since everyone there is well aware of my ED). Ack, I hate being pressured to eat something…

For the main meal I ordered two a la cartes…The first one was saba yaki (fried mackerel):

This was a pretty large piece! And so freaking delicious! It came piping hot and still sort of sizzling in front of me. I dug into it with greedy chopsticks, and found the skin to be perfectly crispy, and the flesh delightfully flaky and juicy. I’m not going to lie: I was freaked out by the obscene amount of oil swimming out of it! Mackerel itself it an extremely oily fish…so did they have to bath it in oil to cook it? But I pushed these ED fears aside and still managed to finished every scrap of it.

I also had a Sakae chawanmushi (steamed egg custard with mushroom and fish cakes):

Haha, you didn’t think I’d have a meal without some kind of egg included, did you?

It’s crazy that America doesn’t have this outstanding dish in their Japanese restaurants! Or at least, not the ones around my area. But this is seriously my most favorite Japanese dish. It is so smooth, so flavorful, so rich and fun to eat! You just dig into the soft savory custard with a tiny spoon and slurp it down, and find little treasures (mushrooms, fish cakes, crabmeat, chicken, etc) hidden inside the custard!

Hmm…It seems like I’ve been having Japanese cuisine each time I eat out! Which is weird because I never really used to like Japanese food that much. Which is your favorite cuisine and why?

Oh, and quick product review today:

I had a few squares of this last night (HUGE ED fear= chocolate so yay me!). The Lindt Excellence dark chocolate, chili flavor. Interesting, no? I was expecting something really exotic, but it just tasted like the basic dark chocolate...with a faint spicy kick at the end. I was really proud of myself for challenging myself with chocolate...but chocolate-fanatics are gonna be flabbergasted with me because I found out I don't really enjoy chocolate that much after all! But at least I gave it a chance again...

Have a great weekend, everybody~

Say Chee~se!

2009-02-05T06:12:00.001-08:00

I’ve been having a different breakfast these past couple of days, due to waking up late. I knew my normal breakfast of oatmeal and fruits would ruin my appetite for lunch, so I’ve just been choosing something light and easily digestible: A heaping bowl of plain yogurt with all kinds of fruits mixed in with tons of cinnamon.

The fruits: grapefruit, grapes, apples, pineapples, pear, tangerine with another bowl of refreshing, thirst-quenching watermelon on the side (unpictured). I’m actually starting to favor this giant bowl of yogurt, because it really revitalizes me and cools me down after my daily morning walk. Plus, by the time lunch rolls around I’m perfectly hungry again.

Anyway, I had cheese in my mind yesterday. I was really craving some stringy, melted cheese…the kind that you can twirl around your fork and stretch it out and slurp it down still hot and gooey in your mouth. Specifically: mozzarella cheese.

But I was also really craving some kind of bold, intense flavor, which mozzarella, unfortunately, cannot satisfy with its milder flavor. Then I remembered the marinated mushrooms and onions I made for my Veggie and Cheese Open-faced Sandwich a few days ago, and decided they would go perfectly with mozzarella cheese!

I basically went through the same procedure as for the sandwich: I skillet-grilled some sliced eggplants, layered them onto a baking dish, then topped them off with fresh tomato slices. Meanwhile, I marinated some shitake mushrooms and onions in the world’s best marinade: soy sauce, cider vinegar, sake, tons of ginger and garlic, sweetener, and black pepper. I sautéed them until soft and (orgasmically) fragrant, then dumped them all over the eggplants and tomatoes. And then the finale: Handfuls of mozzarella cheese and spoonfuls of Parmesan cheese as well!

It smelled awesome in the oven and I was practically swooning in its heavenly scents! BUT when it came out of the oven:

What the hell? It looked like a frightful black mess. Like some overcooked lasagna. Like some dish a kid poured ink all over. Like baked cat’s poop! I was quite disappointed, as I was expecting a brilliant dish with the paleness of the melted cheese, but I guess I left it in the oven too long and the cheese cooked to a crispier brown color. Also, I think the marinade from the mushrooms and onions soaked through and dyed the whole thing black.

Still, it tasted fantastic!! The bold flavors were just popping in my mouth, and the cheese, though crispier than I would have liked, still had enough chewiness and stringiness in them

But guess what? What pleased me the most was not its glorious taste, but the fact that I overstepped my comfort zone, and challenged myself by using full-fat cheese. And not just a miserable sprinkle, but two large handfuls! I didn’t even care to measure!

YAY! This is why I’m calling this the Victory Vegetable and Cheese Bake. Yeah, yeah, I know, not the most original name…can you think of something better?

After lunch, I met up with my friend from Penang again to watch Bride Wars! You guys were right, it was really good! I’d rate it an 8.5/10 (I’m a tough critic). It was hilarious and fun, but I think the ending was rushed and too predictable.

Okay, on to today’s eats!

I tried a new fish I’d never had before today. It’s called toman fish (snakehead) and can only be found in Southeast Asia. It was on sale at the supermarket, so I grabbed it, but then when I got home I had no idea how to cook it! I’d never tasted this fish before, so I wasn’t sure about what kind of flavors would suit it. I decided to just wing it and coat it with lots of grated Parmesan cheese and Italian herbs, and salt and pepper of course. I then pan-fried it until cooked through and fragrant. The result:

I was totally clapping myself over the back for my lucky choice of going with Parmesan cheese and pan-fry. The cheese formed this delicious crispy crust all around the fish, and also helped retained all the moisture of the fish. I usually don’t like white fish because it’s less oily and dries out easily, but this one was perfectly tender and moist and flaky! Ah, cheese! How can you ever go wrong with cheese?

I enjoyed this Parmesan-crusted snakehead with a bowl of sunny-side up oats and cooked cabbage.

I love savory oats as much as the sweet kind, especially with a runny yolk seeping through it! The oats were especially flavorful, because I cooked it with some homemade cream of mushroom soup! Have you ever tried savory oats before? I’m open to new ideas and suggestions!

Oh and guess what I had for my afternoon snack? If you said sweet potatoes, sigh, you know me so well…But I added an old friend as well! Welcome my old snack buddy, Jollibean peanut pancake!

This is just like a peanut butter sandwich, except instead of regular sandwich bread, the peanut butter is encased between thick spongy pancake! Aaaah~ I really missed my peanut pancake.

You might have noticed most of my meals, be it lunch or dinner or snacks, are usually of a breakfast theme. It’s not intentional, but I guess I just love breakfast so much that I unconsciously incorporate them into most of my meals! Which is you favorite meal and why?

Waraku redeems itself

2009-02-03T05:44:00.001-08:00

Sweet and short post today. Despite my disappointment with my meal at Pasta de Waraku the other day, I visited the place again this afternoon with a friend who’s visiting Singapore from Penang.

I stuck to what I knew for sure would be good: Grilled Hamburg in Steamed Egg

This was a nice thick patty of the most tenderlicious meat, grilled lightly then steamed in an egg bath of eggs, some kind of flavorful broth, onions, carrots, and green peppers. The melted mozzarella cheese on top was the perfect amount for fun stringiness, unlike the tofu in squid ink sauce that was total cheese-overload.

My friend got the creamy clam and roe pasta:

And garlic-potato cheese toasts:

After lunch we wanted to watch Bride Wars, but was unwilling to wait 2 hours for the next available showtime, so went to the National Library instead. Yup, we’re total nerds. I’m so glad I found a fellow bookworm!

And then dinner:

Is it just me, or is my dinner smiling at me? I'm not imagining it, right? This Eggplasta Pudding totally has a face!

Alright, I’m off to catch me the latest Gossip Girl episode! Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) is such a hunk, and Blaire (Leighton Meester) is so beautiful! Serena and Dan, on the other hand, bo-ring.

But anyway, check out Hangry Pants for some free almond butter giveaway! I have never tried almond butter before because of its price, so would love it if I could win (thought with my luck it won’t ever happen). I know there are other nut butters around too, like cashew, macadamia, and hazelnut. But they’re all so freaking costly! What is your favorite nut butter?

Don’t judge a food by its color

2009-02-02T06:25:00.001-08:00

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Despite being a trite, overused saying, there is a reason why its so timeworn and repeated. The appearance is just a superior image that has little to do with what it really is like. But still, not true when it comes to food.

Aesthetic pleasure is everything in food. The brighter and cleaner the colors of produce, the fresher and more nutritious it is. A final sprinkle of fresh herbs over a plate of pasta makes a whole lot of difference. Overcooked, blanched veggies taste and feel as bad as it looks. Burnt food turns into an unpleasant black. The more colorful the dish, the more appetizing it becomes to us. Nobody feels hungry looking at a bowl of grey mush.

s into an unpleasant black. The more colorful the dish, the more appetizing it becomes to us. Nobody feels hungry looking at a bowl of grey mush.

I myself judge my food by its appearance many times, especially the colors. My veggies? The greener the better. I love the contrast of the yellow yolk against the whites, my tongue salivates at the glorious sight of different gorgeous colors of fruits, and my hand automatically reaches for any (naturally) funky-colored food like purple potatoes and blue corn and red spinach. And guess what? Usually these good-looking, colorful food do taste a whole lot better, if only because we believe it to be. Indeed, we eat with our eyes as much as our tongue and taste.

That was what determined my choice for lunch yesterday: color. I went to eat at a Japanese restaurant called Pasta de Waraku with my friend Jingwen. Skimming down the long menu, my eyes immediately got drawn to a picture of Tofu in Squid-Ink Sauce. It was a deep charcoal black, and was such a striking contrast against the paleness of the tofu! A thick, black sauce of squid ink? I was extremely curious as to what it would taste like, and took little hesitation to order that dish, despite the fact that I don’t really like tofu.

I was so excited when the waiter finally placed this dish before me!

But alas! This was the rare moments in which choosing food by appearance failed me. I was quite disappointed with it. No, it was not bad, it was actually quite okay with a THICK layer of mozzarella cheese on top, but I had expected a big bold flavor to match its big bold color.

To my disappointment, the flavor was pretty mild, and all I could taste was the cheese, lots and lots of cheese.

Seriously, there was even more cheese than the tofu itself! Since tofu is also pretty bland, the whole dish was just bland to me. I don’t know what squid ink is supposed to taste like, but there was a bit of seaweedy flavor which I can only guess is from the squid ink.

Jingwen ordered the Neopolitan:

Looks nice, but yawn.How boring! Just your basic spaghetti with tomato sauce.

Well, at least I had a visually appealing and tasty dinner last night:

Eggplasta pudding, thy have never failed me so. Aaaw.

I tried something different with potatoes for lunch today: Skillet smashed potatoes with onions and garlic!

I just boiled some baby gold potatoes, then heated them up over a high-heat skillet with onions and garlic, smashed them up a bit, then popped the whole thing into the oven to roast and get crispier. This is the result:

With wrinkly hotdogs and a fried egg! Your basic British breakfast fry-up! (Except the wrinkly part. I swear the hotdogs were all nice and puffed up at first, and then deflated like a pricked balloon when I left it to cool a bit with the egg. Anybody know why?)

I just love roasted/baked potatoes, especially if it gets a tiny bit burnt and has that crispy skin!

Here’s a delicious forkful of potato and yolk:

I also had a bowl of yogurt with grapefruit.

Since we’re on the topic of colors today, don’t you love that reddish color against the white creaminess of the yogurt? God’s creation sure is wonderful and miraculous!

Alright, enjoy your new week everyone, and let me leave you with this question: What is your favorite funky food color? Mine is green! Green cookies, green cakes, green cake, green pancakes, anything green that isn’t supposed to be hooks my interest! I blame it on my fascination with green tea and leafy green vegetables! Somehow green just seems so…healthful and refreshing!