Who eats anymore...?

Apparently Jen does, but my recent cooking expeditions have included:

- scrambling eggs
- shoving boxed/pre-rinsed spinach, fruit, and almonds into tupperware for lunch
- scrounging around the kitchen for dinner (think cereal - yay!)

Really. That's it.

Gotta love a busy semester - I'll try to whip something up soon that isn't so bland, or I will at least take pictures of my scrambled eggs and cereal.

Adventures in SE Asian cooking, part 2

This is the last of the Singapore posts, which is probably for the better as I'm sadly no longer there, but mired back on the cold cold East coast. Believe me when I say I'm figuring out how to get back to SE Asia stat (were it not for this whole... work thing, I may have chucked my passport and just stayed).

So. No banana blossom salad. What to do? Given that I'd already made the vinaigrette, well, I thought a green papaya salad may be nice, since it'd be essentially the same thing as the banana blossom salad sans the gross banana blossom part. (By this point, the making of the salad had been ceded fully over to me.) So off to the market I went.. and me and markets are a bad combination, because I like food and I like to buy food.

Two grocery bags later (remember, I went with the intent to buy green papayas. Yet somehow I ended up with tons of stuff) I was back in the apartment, cut open the greenest papaya I could find at the market... and FOILED AGAIN! Even though I tried to choose an unripe papaya, it had already started to ripen. What to do, what to do. I came up with a rather brilliant improvisation, if I do say so myself. Instead of a green papaya salad, I instead sliced up the ripe papaya and tossed the lime-sugar-fish sauce vinaigrette with some Japanese greens (for the vegetarian at the table, I omitted the fish sauce and used salt instead - not as tasty, but it worked). I laid the papaya out on the plate, mounded the Japanese greens in a pile atop the papaya and then garnished the dish with some starfruit (also an impulse buy at the market... see what I said about me and food shopping?). Some fried shallots and chopped peanuts were scattered atop.. et voilà, a rather attractive salad was born.

The rest of the meal was great also - deep fried tofu with bean sprouts in a chili sauce, vegetarian green curry, and a fresh upside-down pineapple cake (seriously, the only dessert I consumed the entire trip). Some champers and wine were had as well, and it was a lovely last meal to have abroad.

Adventures in SE Asian cooking, part 1

 

On my last day in Singapore, a friend and I went shopping at.. well, it'd be the equivalent of a farmers' market in the US, I suppose, except this one was year-round and had permanent stalls.. anyways, we went shopping because we were going to make dinner (as it turned out, for a bunch of guys, how distressingly retro - girls in the kitchen cooking [and drinking], boys in the living room talking business. YES THIS DID HAPPEN).

Pictured above is a banana blossom. A banana what, you ask? A banana blossom. Apparently it grows on the stem holding a cluster of bananas. No, I didn't know that they existed either, but apparently they're a big thing to eat in SE Asia. In the picture we've peeled back one of the leaves so you can see baby bananas to be (at least, that's what we guessed they were). So my friend decided that she wanted to make a banana blossom salad to start our dinner.

This is the recipe we intended to use. Go ahead and check it out. It seems rather simple, n'est-ce pas? I mean, chop up some banana blossoms, toss it with a simple lime-sugar vinaigrette, and presto, you have banana blossom salad. Nice and easy. Just like that. A Vietnamese recipe my mom makes often is very similar, except she uses napa cabbage instead of banana blossoms. It was going to be tasty.

What the recipe did NOT warn us about was that when slicing into the banana blossoms, they started oozing this sticky blackish sap. It was gross. It turned the water we were to toss the sliced blossoms into a vague inky color. (Forget julienning it on the mandolin, the sap got everywhere.) It was NOT removable with water alone. SOAP didn't even cut through the sap. (Eventually, we turned to vegetable oil, and that did the trick). Plus, the cut blossoms didn't emit the most pleasant of aromas, and when we tasted the blossoms, they sort of tasted like... well, chopped up banana peel, with the texture of that as well.

We couldn't serve this, we decided. Not even to a group of hungry guys who were just happy to get a homemade meal that they didn't have to prepare themselves. So out the banana blossoms went, and we had to figure out another starter (oooooh suspense, I'm going to write about it in a later post).

More spotted in Singapore...

Oooh, CAKE!!! Seen at PS.Cafe on Dempsey Hill, in Singapore. I mean, look at that dream on the right... huge marshmallows coated in chocolate atop a brownie base.

Here's a close-up of it:

Sorry about the reflective glare - I thought about asking if I could lift off the glass top to get a better picture of it, but then decided against it.

Oh, and a more complete dessert menu? Why, here it is:

Yet sadly, we still didn't partake of any dessert because after brunch, I was stuffed and wanted no more food. This is probably for the better, as I've turned into a little dumpling after eating my way through SE Asia.

Spotted in Singapore..

I was at Sun Lik Trading, a baking goods store, when I spied these darling half-and-half chocolate chips. I was really tempted to pick up a bag, but then I would probably want more when I ran out, and I haven't ever seen these in the US (even at Surfas, my favorite place in Los Angeles for all things food-related [yes, I do realize I don't live in LA anymore, bah]), and then I would be really bummed out. So I didn't end up buying any.

But I don't know if I can live without them...

(This is the closest I've gotten to something sweet that isn't fruit since I've been here. Sad, but true.)

A New Type of Breakfast

Yes, this bowl is empty.

I had every intention of taking a cute picture of my breakfast before eating it, but it is 11:45am and I was starving. Not to mention, this breakfast was delicious.

Jen knows I waffle back and forth on diets - I am either baking a buttery heart attack or I am denouncing everything that could possibly taste good to maintain my ability to wear cute jeans. This recipe (or bunch of junk thrown together in a bowl however you feel like it) is a small victory for me - tasty and healthy at the same time.

I got the idea off of some vegan blog - don't tune out - try it.

- quinoa (I used red and made it in my rice cooker overnight on a timer - heaven!)
- coconut milk (or dairy, whatever you like)
- cinnamon
- blackberries
- agave nectar (or sugar if you need a sweetner)

The original prompt added nuts of some sort, but I didn't have any so I left them out. It turns out being warm/nutty/sweet/spiced and pretty awesome for January.

It can't always be good.

I keep having to make real food for Tyson. It's starting to grate on my nerves since my vacation is almost over. Or, it should be over already but I am still jumping through hoops like a circus poodle before I can start my new position.

Perhaps my frustration with HR nonsense is reflected in my chicken? That would explain so much...

Anyway, I baked some random chicken today with garlic/rosemary/S&P and some stock. Not really delicious or interesting, and my garlic turned blue-green. I googled that issue and it's normal if your garlic is not quite ready to use (or something).

So what else did I make to accompany my neon garlic chicken mess? Brown rice and salad.

mmmm....

(barf)

Sorry I haven't been contributing...

But there has been some of this...

A fair amount of this..

And quite a bit of this...

Singapore's great.

So there's definitely been no cooking. In fact, we accidentally turned the stove on, and it blew a fuse in the apartment and all the electricity went out on New Year's Day. Oops!