What's for dinner tonight?

I'm working on a giant post of all the soupy soup I have made in the past (especially the ones that my better half loved). That task seemed to be pretty daunting. I guess I should rework the post and break them into little pieces... Then I would be able to actually sit down and work on writing down those recipes and notes.

Anyways, lately the question in our house was "What's for dinner?" I guess I should start putting those recipes of things we eat on a regular basis for families and friends who can't come to dinner. Here's one: Indonesian Noodle.

Mixmixmixmix...

Aloha... Still bored. But a bit better. I suppose...

I am leaving for Indonesia in a week! Ironically, I am craving Indonesian food, badly. I suppose it's not at all surprising. My brain thought that I was a week away from tasting Indonesian food in Indonesia... especially that one particular dish called Gado-gado.

Quick Turkey Psgetti...

I am bored...

Quite frankly, I am waiting for my job to start so I don't have to do menial "please help me"-intern-type jobs (which are tedious and of course nobody wants to do). But I am also poor (no income as of now). So I eat out less and cook more.

Umm... what have I learned in 2015...?

Well... 2015 was the year that I finished my schooling. So I'm now officially a grown up! And now I have time to blog more! Wooo-hooo! (My poor, poor neglected blog... So much for one recipe a day...)

I've learned quite a bit of things in 2015. I learned to make pickled radish and carrot for Vietnamese Banh Mi, I learned to make curry chicken for Burmese-style Shan noodles, and I finally learned to make Manado-style satay. Oh, and I played around with Peking duck style of cooking turkey and chicken.

Tempe

No, not the town in Arizona. I have never been there and that Tempe is inedible. This tempe (or some people called it 'tempeh') is made out of soy bean, a great protein source, and pretty delicious. 

Lazy person's Dongpo pork

So, my interest in Dongpo pork was a result of going to a new restaurant in town that just opened. If you know me, I'm always on the lookout for the next "IT" restaurant. No, not "IT" as in the coolest, hippest restaurant in town - I'm actually like a fish out of water at those places - but a restaurant that's different, unique and can pique my interests in their dishes. 

Figure 1. Dongpo pork

Black Pepper Chicken or Soy Sauce Chicken a la that Delicious Mamak-Style Eatery in Malaysia...

When I was a wee late-teen gal, I was sent off to Malaysia for about a couple of semester. Now it seemed like AEONS ago that that episode in my life happened... 

From Hainan with love...?

This is probably a strange meal. Simply because I used to hate this dish. When I was little, I prefer mixed rice (Indonesian: nasi campur) compared to this. Mixed rice is a mixture of lap cheong sausage, salty and sweet roasted pork (brown roasted pork and red roasted pork), cooked eggs in brown sauce, and a bunch other delicacy with chili sauce. So you can imagine how pale this dish is next to the aforementioned dish. The chicken in this dish is almost colorless, the flavor is VERY mild, and it's really accentuating sesame oil, ginger, and cilantro: all the things I hated when I was a kid.

Thanksgiving... Thank you for everything!

Thanksgiving is unknown in Indonesia. Quite frankly, I didn't even learn how to make my own thanksgiving meal set until after I lived here for 4-5 years. The meal is complex, not because of its flavor profile but the sheer amount of trimmings involved in making a proper thanksgiving meal.

It is, in short, a labor of love.

Yum, yum, yum!

Probably NOT the right name to call this. And I really didn't know what to call this being that I am not Thai. But this dish is inspired by the Thai beef salad, except that mine has the added shrimp which makes this surf and turf. I liked it to pieces and I like to make a big batch and keep it in the fridge, but NO more than overnight, the salad gets too watery otherwise. But, I'd wager that this is due to the fact that I am lazy to keep the components in separate pieces. 

Satay (aka. skewering chicken mercilessly)

Have you ever had the urge to skewer something...? Say... like, you know... chickens? Well, fear not! I have the remedy right here! (Actually, I hope not. Chickens are nice, they're cute and fluffy, and they peck at you lovingly and chase you out of their coop curiously... well, you get the idea...)

Huff, puff, puff!

No, this post isn't about running or any kinds of sports, although... I did just came back from doing yoga. With all that ZEN in me (ahem!), I decided not to get lazy and start cleaning up my kitchen counter so I can make this dish.

Spaghetti aglio e olio...

Sounds fancy, right? I thought so. :) But this is a deceptively simple dish to make. As in, it's seriously super easy (at least in my non-fancy way) but it's super delicious.

I stumbled upon Korean drama: Pasta. This is one of the dishes featured in that series. Of course, the way they do it is a bit more complicated (what with that serving temperature and all that...). My way is probably not even close to the real Italian way, but it results in something super delicious. Or maybe I was just hungry... 

I like the Italian name better. The English name is just Spaghetti with garlic and olive oil. Too "not fancy". :D

Christmas Cooking!!!!

This Christmas I play host to VERY SPECIAL guests: my dear friends Evelyn, Chris, Sophia and Lily. Prior to them visiting me all the way from the eastern part of the US, I asked them if they wanted traditional American-style Christmas dinner with all the trimmings or the Indonesian rice table. They opted for the latter. So here goes.

Figure 1. Clockwise from the top: coconut milk sambal, prawn crackers, soy sauce tofu/tempeh/potatoes, and fried rice noodle sticks surrounding a cup of coconut milk rice

Something different for a change...

Okay... I owe my utmost, deepest apology for not being able to keep up with the blog as much as I wanted to. After all, I was supposed to post a recipe a day. 

Truffles

Happy almost Val's! Val's is all about chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. So here's a simple truffle recipe adapted from the book of everything chocolate-ish.

Dimsum day part 1 - easy dimsum

...and there goes my diet. I caved because I'd been working late nights working on the proposal. So today, I treated myself to dimsum. I think I will have to pay dearly for this "excursion". 


But! On to dimsum... It is single-handedly the kind of thing that will make you feel like you've pigged out quite a bit. It's certainly not the kind of thing for single consumption. Plus, because they're all "bite sized", well... if you don't watch it, you may end up overeating...


OK! Now that those dire warnings are out of the way... Below are recipes for simple dimsum, simple meaning all you have to do is to throw everything together in a steamer and call it a day. The dimsum itself isn't a one dish meal. It's actually several dishes. So, you can combine the recipe below with the congee and twice cooked rice recipes and the spring roll recipe (sans chili sauce) for a full dimsum meal.


Alternatively, you can also use this recipe to make some wontons/pot stickers for your noodles, and the pork to accompany your quick stir-fry.


I'll discuss the more "complicated" ones later on (because I'm at a cafe and I don't bring my bible for pao's/steamed buns).

Interruption to your scheduled programming...

I have to say that real life is "calling"... Well, I have things I have to work on since I have due date coming up. Don't worry, I've been compiling recipes and drinking plenty of water and orange juice to keep up with everything life's throwing at me. 


Recipes will come back after I'm finished with my fellowship. It's like the fellowship of the ring except with computer, lots of typing, and words.


Bear with me, y'all...

The ever creative omelets

They are something REALLY simple to make. I love omelets. They're also really versatile in that you can stuff whatever you want in it, vegetables, cheese, smoked meats... They can deliver a ton of flavor too, depending on how you season your omelets. Plus, you can make it as you want it. My mother was the first person who taught me how to make omelets. I got more practice because my cousins like omelets and I was the one in charge of making them.

Below is a recipe for smoked salmon omelets. The idea came from bagel and lox. I'm not sure really what happened when I created this, but I think I wanted to do something with my smoked salmon and I wanted something spicy and sweet and still be something savory at the same time.

Cream of mushroom soup

I created this recipe because I like making things from scratch. One of the things I like is green bean casserole. And I know some of you may think that green bean casserole is something "gross", but it's not so when you make it from scratch. 

So here's my recipe for cream of mushroom soup. I know that it's quite a significant amount of butter, but this recipe will yield about 2.5 quarts of the soup and it's in form of a soup stock (similar to condensed soup), which you can then thin more.

Despite the name, Elsa doesn't eat this. But she's my partner in the kitchen. I work the counter, she works the floor nibbling on carrots, green pepper, and tomatoes...