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I should really call my blog "lazy cooking". Really.
It doesn't get any lazier than this.
This was what I prepared last night for today's lunch.
I still have leftover fresh sliced pineapple from the tea party, and a can of spam. Throw a little something something, and that could very well be a meal.
I thought of pan frying each element separately on a frying pan...crisp up the spam, caramelize the pineapples and onions, reduce and thicken the "glaze" and stuff...but oh wells, I couldn't be bothered. So, despite the heat, I cranked up my oven and decided to throw everything in and let it cook itself to perfection :D
Recipe
- 1 large can of spam (I used Tulip brand), cut into sizeable bite sized chunks
- half a pineapple, remove skin and core, cut into bite sized chunks
- half an onion, sliced thinly
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- teriyaki sauce, sugar, olive oil
Preheat oven to 200C. Lightly grease baking tray, throw all ingredients in, mix well, bake until the spam pieces are crisp on the outside, and pineapple chunks are caramelized. To bring this to another level, add freshly chopped coriander and chilli as garnish (which I didn't have on hand last nite. Oppps). Consume with a steamy bowl of rice.
Sweet, tangy, juicy pineapple; tasty, hearty, crispy but tender spam...savory garlic and sweet caramelized onion...plus teriyaki sauce? Oh, you knew it was gonna be good ^_^
I've made a promise to cook at home more often instead of just parking my lazy ass by SC's mom dining table, stuffing myself with her delicious treats every day. Call me silly, but if I continued doing so, I am sure that I'll totally forget how to cook and this blog might have to either close down or transferred to SC's mom.
So, on Monday, I told SC about the plan, he was excited, although a bit unhappy about having to wait for 30-45 minutes for dinner instead of going home to a whole table of fully cooked meal ready to be devoured. Too bad!
Every day after work, he'd ask me what I planned to cook...and he'd give a very generous amount of criticism "helpful suggestions" on every dish that I've planned. Including this one. I love sweet and ripe fresh pineapple chunks in savoury dishes. Pineapple gives a dish an exotic touch...and turns it...summery!
So, I told SC that I wanted to cook grilled chicken with pineapple chunks.
His helpful comments:
- Why would you cook chicken with pineapple?
- Pineapple is always cooked with pork (and by pork, he meant beef. The dish his mom always makes for him)
- I should remember to use corn starch (SC thinks that corn starch is the essence of Chinese cooking ^_^')
My response?
Since you're such an expert, how about you do the cooking tonight?
SC's response?
Pretended that he didn't hear me :P
Typical! :D
How here's my super simple dish...
Recipe
(serves two)
- 1/2 fresh, ripe pineapple, peel skin off, remove core, cut into chunks (if fresh pineapple isn't available, you can use canned pineapple)
- 2 boneless chicken leg fillet (for grilling I like them with skin on), trim excess fat off
- seasoning for chicken: salt, pepper, olive oil
- for the pineapple: sugar (or you can use golden syrup), a bit of hot water, salt, fish sauce, a bit of corn starch dissolved in water (optional)|
Season chicken with salt, pepper, add a bit of olive oil, grill skin down on a hot pan (I used non stick, so I didn't need so much oil) to brown the skin. Once the skin's brown, lower the heat and flip the chicken, cook until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. If you wish, you can let the chicken finish grilling in the oven. Set grilled chicken aside (I cut mine to a bite sized chunks, you can serve them whole).
Get rid of excess fat from the pan, add pineapple chunks, let them caramelize a little (I was too impatient to wait for that), add sugar, salt, hot water and a touch of fish sauce to season. If you don't want the sauce to reduce much and you want it thickened, use corn starch & water mixture. The corn starch mixture will also help the sauce to "hang on" to the meat (this is a lesson learnt from SC ^_^).
Garnish with freshly chopped chillies, crispy shallot and coriander to make the dish even better. SC doesn't like them at this moment (he's having a weird moment), so I didn't use any ^_^'
Next time, let's let SC do the cooking, shall we? ;)
Clad in my turtle necks, jackets, scarves, tights and boots (Oh, lighten up, Hong Kong! It's only 12C!)...braving the chilly breeze as I pranched from Central to Admiralty for my lunch time stroll after devouring my lousy microwaved lunch box, I couldn't help but think of those who are currently sweating profusely in 30something degrees Celcius heat.
So, here's something easy and refreshing for those who are on the other side of the globe.
Ingredients
- 1 cup of rice (I used a mix of white and brown rice, chewy, perfect for fried rice), cooked and refrigerated overnight
- 1 cup of pineapple chunks (fresh is best, canned works too), if you're using canned pineapple, drain
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 2 small red chilli, chopped (or adjust based on your heat tolerance)
- fish sauce, pepper, olive oil
- crispy shallot (easily found in major supermarkets in Hong Kong)
- a couple sprigs of fresh corriander, chopped
In a non stick pan, saute garlic, shallot and chilli in 1 tbsp of olive oil. Add pineapple chunks, add rice, season with fish sauce and pepper, mix well, taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Add freshly chopped corriander, give it a quick mix, serve with crispy shallot.
Sweet, sour, savory, hearty...refreshing yumminess!
Now let me get back to shivering at work while you wipe sweat off your forehead and sip your pina colada.
You're not having a dejavu, there was really another party at my place, and the title of my post doesn't mean that I am good at hosting party (this was only my second time), it's a question, not a statement. Please share your party tips, pretty please?...
I remember my first time attending a "casual" dinner at my friend's place, in Singapore. I typed casual between quotation marks, as to me, it was really a stunning dinner. She was serving simple and delicious home cooked meal of tomato soup and lasagna, but the table was beautifully set, decorated with gorgeous flowers and candles.
Did I learn from that experience? Ehm, judging from how my party spread looked like (disposable plates and cups? Really?)...gosh, I still have a lot to learn.
What did I do prior to the party?
Is my place normally that pristine and immaculate? Do I always have fresh flowers at home? Of course NOT!
Not really, so here are the things that I do when preparing for a party:
- A week before: thought about the menu (Order in? Take away? Home cooking? What style? Western? Asian? Indonesian? Chinese? Who doesn't eat what? Are the guests big eaters/dieters?) Any other activities to be done after dinner? Xbox? DVD? Games?
- A couple of days before: menu should be pretty much decided, create a list of ingredients to purchase)
- The day before: purchase ingredients and prep or cook dishes which can be prepared in advance, tidy up my mountain-high piles of dirty laundry, collect and throw SC's game weekly magazines from every room, stash any messy tidbits into empty drawers
- The morning and afternoon before: roughly dust visible places, clean floor, and prohibit SC to throw more dirty laundry everywhere, arrange flowers into various vases and station them several rooms
- One hour before the party: start cooking rice, and prepare all ingredients for dishes, ready to fire up, and prepare to heat up dishes which had been cook the day before
What did I serve this time? Just simple dishes I knew I could handle.
Italian Herbs and Lemon Zest Grilled Chicken Wings
- I prepared about 2-3 pieces of wings per person
- Italian mixed herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage)
- Zest of 1 lemon, juice of 1 lemon
- Salt, black pepper, olive oil
The day before the party, I defrosted the wings by quick boiling it (dip them into boiling water until the skin changed color, but not necessarily cooked through), drain and pat dry, coat wings with all ingredients, store in fridge. You can opt to skip the quick boiling.
On the day of the party, preheat oven to 220C, grill wings until the skin turned golden brown.
Corn Kernels with Bacon and Sausages
- 1 large can of corn kernels
- 3 slices of bacon, cut into small chunks
- 3 chicken franks, cut into 2-3 mm thick chunks (or any other sausages of your choice)
- 2 pork and herb sausages, cut into bite sized chunks
- black pepper
Defrost sausages and bacon since the night before, if necessary. About one - 2 hours before the party (or the day before, if you didn't need to defrost anything), slice bacon and sausages, then keep in the fridge before cooking. When ready to cook, heat up frying pan, add bacon and sausages (with no oil), cook until golden. Meanwhile, open the can of corn kernels and drain. Once the bacon and sausages are nicely browned, add corn kernels, cook until a bit charred, add black pepper. No other seasoning necessary, all the ingredients are already very flavorful.
Initially, I planned to add raisins to this dish, which will add another dimension of flavor, but I...forgot. Opps, maybe next time.
Grilled Chicken, Pineapple and Red Pepper in Coconut Milk
- 3 pieces of chicken upper thigh fillet
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 1 can (around 200ml coconut milk)
- 1 small fresh pineapple, or 1 can of pineapple chunks
- salt, black pepper, fish sauce, sugar
In the afternoon, or 1 hour before dinner starts, start preparing the ingredients, all the slicing and dicing. When it is time to serve, heat up frying pan (with no oil), season chicken fillet with salt, black pepper and olive oil, and grill skin down until you get some color. Flip once, cook until you get some colorage, set aside and slice into bite sized chunks. Saute garlic and onion, add chicken pieces, add pineapple (without the syrup if you are using canned pineapple), add coconut milk, and use some of the syrup of the canned pineapple (if using), season with salt, pepper, sugar, fish sauce and serve.
Beef Brisket Stewed in Red Wine
The birthday girl wanted to try this dish, so I did another encore of Beef and Red Wine combo. This time using brisket. I cooked this dish the night before, to get the beef to be more flavorful the day I served it.
Sauteed Black Pepper Mushrooms
- Mixed mushrooms
- Butter and olive oil
- salt and black pepper
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Saute garlic in olive oil and butter, add mushrooms until they turn golden and slightly charred, season with salt and lots of black pepper. It was really that simple.
Poison of the Day:
Mandarin Orange, White Wine and 7Up Drink
I should've named the drink with something catchy like sex on the beach or screaming orgasm, but my creativity veins are blocked today (this is Monday!)...so I just called it what it is.
Suggestions please....^_^
- 1 small can of mandarin orange sections in syrup
- white wine
- sprite/7up/soda water
Fill a jug with the mandarin orange sections, including the syrup, add ice, fill up to 2/3 with chilled white wine, top it off with sprite/7up/soda water, stir and serve.
The birthday cake's from a bakery called Zoe, it's very chocolatey, rich, and satiny smooth delicious! Served with cups hot of earl grey tea.
Capturing Joe's cute gestures and expressions such as this one? Priceless!
The perfect party souvenir: Polaroid pictures!
Useful tips:
- If we're anything other than svelte, hide behind those who are ^_^
- If you wanna appear more fair skinned, move to the front
- If you wanna appear ridiculous, do my pose
A birthday isn't a birthday without some gift giving action. The gift which shocked Joe to the core...original soundtrack of Boys over Flowers and SS501 album (birthday girl's current favorites).
Guess what he was thinking when he saw the CDs?
Check out birthday girl's blog post to find out what her husband said about her outfit, at Athena's Little C9 (in Chinese).
Somehow, the title of this post kinda reminds me of Spice Girls.
Imagine Creamy Spice, Sweet Spice, Tangy Spice, and Hearty Spice. Spicy?
Ehm, that brought back memories of another thing something I am not proud of...
When I was young, the five of us, my sis, my cousins and I, love love LOVE, a Japanese series Google V. It's a team of 5 heroic characters, fighting various world destroying baddies. We loved the series so much, we watched the series again and again (It was the time when videos were still in! Gowd, I am old) we sang the songs, we remember the tag lines, we remember which bad guys did what, we could imitate the moves/routines, the weapons, the transformation into robot, the robot's moves/routines and the final weapon (which worked every time, I am now wondering why they didn't use it straight away to kill the monster. oh yeah, there would be no series if they did that. gotcha).
We were a bunch of hopeless, geeky, nerdy freaks!
Everyone got to choose their own character. My chubby sis was goggle yellow, my girly cousin was goggle pink, both my boy cousins snatched the blue and the black, just because there were their favorite colors, and I was stuck being red. Actually, I didn't mind as the guy playing goggle red was kinda hot, although my major childhood crush was really...goggle blue.
Why am I feeling more like a loser each time I typed one more word into this post...
Anyway, that was then. My fun filled childhood.
Now, if creamy, sweet, tangy, spicy and hearty are characters out of spice girls or any group/band, I would have a major hard time choosing a character, cos I love 'em all and I like mixing 'em all up in one easy peasy dish, such as this one...
Creamy, Sweet, Tangy, Spicy, Hearty Minced Meat, Pineapple, and Eggplant in Coconut Milk
Recipe
- 1 lb minced meat (I used pork, but chicken will work too)
- 1 pineapple, remove core, cut into bite sized chunks
- 1 eggplant, cut into bite sized chunks
- a box of 200ml coconut cream
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 4 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 3 red chilli, chopped
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar
- 1 sprig of spring onion or corriander, chopped (garnish)
- crispy fried shallot (garnish, optional)
Saute garlic, shallot, and chilli in olive oil until fragrant, add minced meat, cook for a while until it changed color a bit, add eggplants and pineapple, add seasonings, cook covered until eggplants are cooked through, add coconut milk, mix well, garnish with freshly chopped corriander/spring onion and crispy shallot. Serve hot with steamed rice or between two slices of bread of your choice.
Creamy, sweet, tangy, spicy, hearty.
Now tell me, who was your action hero childhood crush?
How should I devirginize my new kitchen?
- By sacrificing a virgin suckling pig? Nah, too cruel.
- By spritzing holy water all over it? Ehm, maybe some cleaning solution instead?
- With a prayer? Our Father who art in heaven, please bless this kitchen with less food disasters...
- With a ceremony involving dancing naked in front of the kitchen window? Hmm, tempting idea, but may result in multiple law suits from the neighbors...
So I opted to go with baking something dead easy instead.
Pineapple Rum Cake
Pineapple and rum? New best friends in my new kitchen!
Recipe
(yields 6 small muffins and 2 cakes in small ramekins)
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1 tsp rum
- 3/4 cup pineapple chunks (half of very small pineapple, peel skin, remove core, cut into bite sized chunks, or you can use canned pineapple)
Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl, mix all wet ingredients (except pineapple) in a bowl. Mix dry and wet ingredients, add pineapple chunks, pour into muffin tray lined with paper cups until 3/4 full and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
? vs !
Now, let me refresh your memory on my old kitchen...
Space? What space? There was almost no working space for me...and don't even think of working on living/dining room. Space is one luxurious thing I couldn't have.
I haven't taken pictures of the whole new kitchen. Surely it is not as spacious as normal kitchens, this is Hong Kong after all, but I am grateful of the every square centimeter (not meter) of working space I could have.
More pictures of the new kitchen coming, stay tuned!
PS. I bet my new kitchen kinda enjoyed the devirginisation ritual. I was gentle. ^_*
Is it just me, or do you guys have weird dreams too?
When I heard the word nightmare, I only thought of any dreams involving scary ghosts flying around scary places/evil spirits, ala the Ring, Poltergeist, Omen, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc.
I never thought that my other weirdo dreams, such as:
- I have a mathematics exam today, but I've been studying biology
- I have an exam today, but I didn't study at all yesterday
- I can't get to the examination building (naturally, I woke up before the scene where I got to the exam room or going through the exam)
- I am so late for work, there is an ultra important meeting, and there are 100001 obstacles to pass through (of cos, I would wake up before the scene where I got to the office)
- Having nothing to eat
- Very hungry, seeing a mountain of delicious food in front of me, yet I can't touch them (Oh nooo...)
...are actually considered nightmares too. Ms. Wiki said that any dreams that make me feel strongly unpleasant = nightmare.
Why do I have so many nightmares? Ehm, does going to bed after eating cause nightmare? I learnt this from my emotionally deep, highly profound literature, Garfield. I was wondering if it was true...and yes, Ms. Wiki said so too. Eating before sleep increases body's metabolism and brain activity, and I do, snack before bed (a lot), thus my very vivid, super intense, never ending exam/work/hunger nightmares.
But what the heck, nothing feels better than sleeping after a delicious and satisfying meal.
This was one of my nightmare cause...
Bistik Daging Nanas Pedas
(Spicy Meat and Pineapple in Sweet & Savoury Sauce)
Back home, bistik is made with sliced beef and homemade fried potato chunks, which I totally love. However, as I repeatedly said, I love minced meat as it makes my weekdays easier (no chopping, no slicing, no nothing), and the pineapple chunks added natural sweetness and acidity to this dish. The chopped chilli added and extra spicy kick for me.
Recipe
- 1 pack (0.7 lb) minced meat
- half a small fresh pineapple, remove core and cut into bite sized chunks (you can use canned pineapple, but fresh is better)
- 3 red chilli, chopped (adjust to suit your taste)
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- half an onion, sliced
- light soy sauce, kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), a dash of worcestershire sauce, white pepper, ground/freshly grated nutmeg, olive oil
Saute garlic, onion and chilli in hot oil, add meat, cook until thoroughly cooked, add sauces, add pineapple chunks, cook until everything is done, serve with plain rice, or stir in some pasta.
If you like your pineapple caramelised a little, add them before adding the meat, cook until they are caramelised.
I devoured loads of this with loads of rice and the carb high sent me straight to bed. My nightmare was trying to go to hip hop class, taught by my super hot dance teacher (I guess deep inside I wanted to exercise/drooling over a hot guy, instead of curling under a blanket after a meal), but there were 1,000,000 obstacles which I had to go through, including finding my favorite exercise t-shirt and driving through a crowded Indonesian market. Bah!
But it was so totally worth it, at least it wasn't anything with scary ghosts flying around.
I am keeping it simple this time.
I love the four S(es) in food: Spicy. Sweet. Sour. Savoury.
Spicy = tiny bits of red chilli
Sweet = ripe pineapple, onion and green peas
Sour = still from the pineapple
Savoury = garlic and minced beef
This was done when sous chef was still in low iodine diet. I was amazed how little seasoning I had to add to make this dish flavorful. For your information, sous chef is now like a culinary prisoner on the loose, ravishing everything he was not allowed to eat. Ehm. That can't be good.
Easy Spicy Pineapple Minced Beef with Green Peas
Recipe
- 1 small ripe pineapple (you can replace it with canned pineapple, but it is best if you can get fresh, ripe pineapple), cut into bite sized chunks
- 3 chilli, chopped (adjust to match your heat tolerance)
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 lb minced beef
- 3/4 cup green peas
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar
Saute garlic, chilli, onion in hot oil until fragrant, throw in minced beef, you will see it change color, add pineapple chunks, add green peas, season, done.
You can also incorporate rice/noodles/pasta into this dish. Ah, it's more than just 4 S, it's SSSH! H for healthy ^_^ (oh man, can someone stop her from being so cheesy?).
My telephatical-mind readerish radar sensed that sous chef is sick of my cooking and will want KFC for tonight's dinner. Yum! Oh, maybe that's just me.
Maybe I am crazy, but I hate taking naps. When I took afternoon/evening naps, especially on weekends, it felt like I had wasted a good few hours sleeping when I could be doing something else (like updating this freakin' blog?). When I woke up from naps, I felt feverish, weak, tired, and not at all refreshed. Does anyone else feel the same? What's wrong with me?
I like to be out and about on Fridays. I need to shake the weekday feel off and unwind. Dining out, having a drink or two, out shopping with my girls, catching a show, or whatever. Just like how I planned today. We were supposed to have dinner, then go out cruisin' the hood. It didn't happen, and I'd like to blame it on my dinner.
Tasty dishes generally make us consume more rice...and put us to sleep. Sigh.
Lemon Curry Grilled Pork Neck & Spicy Pineapple Zucchini Stir Fry
Recipe
Lemon Curry Grilled Pork Neck
- 1 lb pork neck, poked all over with fork
- marinate with juice of half lemon, zest of 1 lemon, curry powder, ground cumin, ground corriander seed, salt, pepper, sugar for at least 30 minutes
Preheat oven to 250C. Grill pork neck until golden brown, slice and serve
Spicy Pineapple Zucchini Stir Fry
- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3 red chilli, chopped
- half onion, finely chopped
- 1 small pineapple, remove core, cut into bite sized chunks
- 1 zucchini, cut into 3 mm thick chunks
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar
Saute garlic, chilli, onion in hot oil until fragrant, add pineapple and zucchini, cook until zucchini pieces are softened, season, serve
The spicy, savoury, tangy, and sweet flavors of these dishes pretty much ruined my Friday. Hmm, but at least I got high.........on carb.
I used to be a hot food snob. I used to be dead proud that not only I could handle tongue numbingly hot food, I even LOVEDDDD them. A meal was not a meal without a huge dose of sambal or chilli of any kind.
It started when I moved to Sydney. Back home in Indonesia, being able to handle hot food is nothing.
Everybody love hot food. So what? It's not a big deal, it was probably even cool if you can't handle hot food, according to the law of the non-mainstreamers ;) But in Sydney? Boy! The first few months were really challenging, a trip to any eatery was often accompanied by a bottle or packs of Indonesian chilli sauce (sambal ABC)...and classmates from other countries always ooohed and aaahed, looking at you in awe, admiring eyes when you nonchalantly downed pieces upon pieces of hot chillies, without even blinking or breaking any sweat.
But that was then.
A few years living outside Indonesia seemed to have tamed the hot bitch in me. Nowadays, I don't even drizzle a drop of chilli oil into my wonton soups...my eyes get all teary, my nose runny, my face turns steamed lobster red while gasping for air when I went to have Sze Chuan hot pot (which even Tony Bourdain could handle, wat the??!!!)...and...I regret to announce that these days, I order the lowest level of heat for my noodle soup base (head down, tail between legs, so ashamed) instead of the hottest of hot that I used to love T_T sob sob sob. I've become heat intolerant. Arrrrggghhhhh!!!
So, it was a silly decision for me to remake this Super Spicy Indonesian Pineapple Sweet Salad (Rujak Nanas Super Pedas) and thought that I could still handle it. Duh!
Recipe
- 1 ripe pineapple, cut into bite sized chunks (you can use many different tropical fruits, such as jicama, young mango, guava, etc, but I particularly love ripe pineapple)
The Super Hot Sauce/Dip
- 3 small red chillies, chopped (I didn't remove the core and the seeds. You can adjust to meet your level of heat tolerance, I recommend put as little as possible and add more later if you need)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup palm sugar
- 1/2 tsp shrimp paste (toasted)
- juice of 1 lime
- a bit of hot water
Blend everything into a paste (traditionally, we use stone mortar and pestle), add a bit of hot water to blend everything better. Pour sauce over pineapple or dip pineapple into it ^_^
I am sharing this with Waiter, there's something in my....Indonesian by Spittoonextra.
Again, the whole sniffing and crying episodes happened upon me when I consumed this childhood favorite treat of mine. Sad. Sad. Sad.
...and to make it even worse...sous chef ate most of the thing nonchalantly like there was no heat at all. SOBBBBB. I guess my palate is now more "refined", eh? Hehe (denial, denial)
Who doesn't love pleasant surprises? Hehe I surely do! I love the surprises such as...finding $20 notes in my jeans pocket, fitting into my 6 years old micro mini skirt or skinny jeans (unfortunately, no luck in this area nowadays) , finding my favorite sausage, Beddar with Cheddar on SALE!!...or finding the muffins I thought I was gonna fail miserably actually taste fan-bloody-tastic! ^_^
Yesterday afternoon, I was out for a girl's tea time, when my sous chef called and said that he was gonna cook something. I was so worried to hear that he was gonna cook without my supervision (lucky sous chef, in the kitchen, I am such a dominatrix tyrant!)...I expected to reach home finding my kitchen had collapsed into broken pieces...dirty dishes and bowls piled mountain high in my tiny sink...oil, flour, and various ingredients covering the whole kitchen floor...and a tasty dish :)
I was pleasantly surprised to find the kitchen was still there...with minimum spillage on the floor, everything was still in place, and I didn't get just one tasty dish...there were one, two, three, FOUR tasty dishes! Wow! You guys know me...I am all "The More, The Merrier" girl when it comes to tasty treats hehe!
SC shares his recipes below:
Cheese Pork Balls with Creamy Mayo Sauce
- 1 lb minced pork
- salt, pepper, sugar, chicken powder, corn starch
- your choice of cheese, cut into small cubes
- olive oil
- mayo
Marinate minced pork with salt, pepper, sugar, chicken powder, corn starch and a bit of oil. Roll into small balls with a piece of cheese inside. Microwave for 5 minutes to minimise frying time. Fry pork balls in hot oil until golden brown, set aside on paper towel. Heat up mayo in a hot pan, add pork balls, mix well.
Vegetables with Chinese Miso
- 0.5 lb baby bak choy
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- 2 tbsp chinese miso
- olive oil
Clean veggie, saute garlic and ginger, add veggie, add Chinese miso
Beef and Pineapple Fried Rice
- small canned pineapple
- 0.5 lb minced beef
- a handful of green peas
- 2 eggs, beaten
- olive oil
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 sprig of spring onion, finely chopped
- salt, pepper, sugar, chicken powder
- 1.5 cups of rice, preferably cooked the day before and left overnight in the fridge
Saute garlic, spring onion, beef, add eggs, pineapple, green peas, rice, mix well, season, serve.
...and he also did an encore of his Tasty Steamed TofuHmmm, I could really get used to this kinda pleasant suprises ^_*
Where did the weird inspiration come from??!!
Based on transpacific discussion with my sis via yahoo messenger, there were some...
Dinner Ideas
1. Grilled Chicken in Sambal ABC Chilli Sauce
Brilliant idea, 100% yummy, but need to cook veggie separately
2. Long Beans and Tofu in Coconut Milk
Healthy, yummy, but my sis thought it's kinda blah
3. SPAM and Long Beans in Chilli and Coconut Milk
Sounded good in my head, but sounds like a lot of work, and Spam does not need a lot of work, it is superbly yummy as it is
4. SPAM and Beansprouts
Sis thought of this, sounds good, but I've tried it before and it was kinda blah
5. SPAM and Pineapples
Both of us went ...WHOA...this is it! Let's do it! (OK, I was gonna do it, and she's gonna get the report later to see if it sucked hehe)
6. SPAM + Shrimps + Pineapples + Coconut milk/cream + Lime Juice = My Mocktail Inspired Dinner LOL!!
Spam & Shrimps Virgin Colada
Recipe
- 1 large can of SPAM (luncheon meat), cut into cubes
- 0.5 lbs shrimps, remove shell and vein
- 1 canned pineapple (or you can use fresh)
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 4 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 3 small red chilli, remove core and seeds, thinly sliced
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- lime juice
- 1/2 cup coconut milk/cream (or more if you want more sauce)
- fish sauce, pepper
- olive oil
- fried shallot and corriander (optional for garnish)
I like to crisp the Spam a little (you can skip this step) by frying it in a bit of olive oil, then set aside. Saute garlic, shallot, chilli and ginger in olive oil, add pineapple chunks, add spam, add shrimps, add some water from the canned pineapple (depends on how much sauce you want), add lime juice, drizzle some fish sauce, add pepper, add coconut milk, cook for a bit, garnish with fried shallot and corriander, serve with steamed rice
The only thing missing was the tiny little colorful umbrella...oh and maybe the rum and the irritating drunk who won't stop hitting on you? ^_*