Maca...wrongs.

Following our horrible first attempt at making French Macaroons at Bun's place sometime back, I tried to bake another batch 2 days ago.

Conclusion: Another failed attempt. The shells were too airy and weren't able to harden. It makes use of the simplest ingredients; just egg-whites, sugar, and almond powder but the techniques involved are so tricky! I followed the recipe really closely and did just what the recipe asked for; nope, it didn't work. Went online to check again and realized I forgot to let the piped shells settle for at least 30 minutes before sending them into the oven. I ate a number of these 'failed shells', and interestingly, while they don't look the part, they somehow tasted the part; there was the chewy consistency.

Ah well, I have enough ingredients to try a second time before the school starts.

Cooking and Me

I love cooking. Sure, I am definitely not able to whip up the most fantastic-tasting (or aesthetically good-looking for that matter) dishes, but that's another matter altogether, and it's not deterring my love for cooking. The process may get really long and tedious; chopping/mincing resulting in aching arms (no less!), checking constantly to see if the food's ready, but the end product is usually worth the effort. At least to me.

I derive pleasure from learning about really simple things in life, I mean, I often marvel in wonder how things work. Such a wonderful thing about life and what goes on it it.

After the past few sessions of kitchen experiments, I've come to realize that I prefer to adopt a trial-and-error method in cooking rather than sticking to a very rigid set of instructions. That may have been the cause of some of the experiment failures, I'm sure.

Early this morning, I decide to make sushi. It's my first attempt, and I guess it turned out alright. Well, it was edible and I tried to make it look nice as best as I could. The whole process made me realize how such a simple-looking sushi can involve so much effort; now I'm going to look at the humble sushi in an all different light. Ha.

The bigger ones were the ones made initially... too big, I know..

Spreading of rice (evenly) onto pieces of seaweed is not as easy as it sounds, especially when the rice is super sticky. But I learnt that you can avoid that sticky issue by wetting your hands as you handle the rice.

The full set.

And the rolling of everything combined on the sushi mat... oh my first roll was horrendous. What was supposed to be a roll of potential maki turned out to be blocks of onigiri. Haa! Laugh if you wish, I think it's really funny too. I'm just glad it only got better towards the end.

And just when you thought everything is done after you've cut the roll up into small pieces of maki, you realize it's not the end. Repeat the entire process again. Sticky rice. Seaweed. Filling. Roll. Roll. Cut (Saw). I swear it's a test of patience sometimes... food preparation. Good for training your patience threshold though, I must say.

Honey Baked Cornflakes

I've been wanting to make this for a very long time, and I finally went to get some cornflakes from NTUC today. It's really an easy snack to make, and I can see myself doing this together with my kid in the future, if I ever get around to having any.

colourful? I got them from Daiso, $2/pack of 20 cups.

The cups are really tiny, so I took quite awhile to fill them up. If I'm ever using these cups again, I'd probably crush the cornflakes to smaller bits so that they'll fit better.

stir-fry

It's sheer heatiness (pu zua) I tell you. But it's yummy pu zua!

Done.

I was thinking of video we came up with for our ICT project sometime back as I was filling up the cups. A project that went quite smoothly, but almost caused me a heart-attack on presentation day! Haha. I'm really glad we're rid of projects for the next three months... it's the holidays babeh!

The aspiring domestician

To be dead honest, okay, not really.

I made dinner for my family last night. Bamboo shoots, mushrooms and minced meat braised in soya sauce plus a dish of steamed asparagus (makes it lose all the crunchiness, I'm frying it the next time round). It was fun! Cooking is a really fun process, all that chopping (I love chopping), washing, preparation work... the laughs that you get as a result come as a bonus sometimes.

Till the next masak masak session, will try to include pictures!

ps. This might come a little late, for someone who's turning 21 like me, but I finally know what's the right amount of water to use for cooking rice, and that starting with big flames result in cracked eggs if you're boiling them. Don't laugh at me please.

Carbo-loading dinner with the girls

picture sources: here & here

I think I just had enough carbos for the entire week (rest of the week, I mean) over dinner. Cooked ourselves a pasta dinner; it consisted of some yummy ravioli and spaghetti drenched in tomato and a cream-based sauce, as well as some lagsana (shir's a genius please). I chopped onions for the first time in my life, and now I cannot help but agree that chopping onions make one tear. And I used to think it was nothing but some overrated rubbish. Totally goes to show how undomesticated I am. 

Oh well, I have the holidays to buck up a little. Cheer for me okay.

ps. I love bumming around like what we just did tonight. Girlfriends over boyfriends anytime babeh.