i'll put in words tomorrow

morning thoughts

i was having my morning coffee on the balcony when i noticed a lone red-hooded figure on the beach (?). he/she was standing on the rocks and seemed to be bending over them, searching for something. looked around for an accompanying person or dog, but there was none. reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where he meets Clementine for the first time. the intro song started playing in my head...

then i saw a piece of plastic bag floating in the air about 10 storeys up from the main road below. reminded me of American Beauty....

damn. my life is not a movie. back to work.

again with the last minute-ness!

so i haven't been posting a lot lately because i didn't get a chance to cook or go anywhere because my GA is sending me food almost every night, and because i am lazy to go out. 


my family has dinners at my house every Sunday. i really REALLY miss those, and i got to join in unexpectedly the week before when my aunt had her birthday. even joined in singing Happy Birthday! my dear aunt, she is the most good-hearted and generous person i know. and OMG her food. OMG is all i can say. 


yes yes, i did it all on webcam. the wonders of technology! it's made me feel a lot less alone here, being able to connect with family and friends. 


i came up with this brilliant idea of attempting to recreate the dinner my aunt would make on Sunday, and have dinner with my family via webcam. BAD idea cause i procrastinated and went to the supermarket late and then ended up cooking late with my family watching on as they had what must surely have been the most stupendous fried rice in the world. 


i, on the other hand, under-fried my chourico, forgot to add egg and most of all, enough oil so that the rice would not stick to the wok. i ended up with eggless, un-salty fried rice that had 30% of it stuck to the wok. sigh. 


actually, to my known memory, that is the first time i have ever cooked fried rice. if not, then it must only be the second. so i have an excuse. right? :D


after the sort-of disastrous dinner (to be honest it didn't taste that bad heh) i discovered i could easily scrape off all the rest of the fried rice off the wok. it was so crunchy and yummy! (yes, i'm ignoring the fact that there was probably a ton of carcinogens in that!) so i put it in with the leftovers, determined to make a better (if not fresher) dinner the next night.


so, because today was a highly unstressful day at work (snigger), i managed to come home, leave the leftover fried rice out for a while from the fridge, get the egg beaten up (LOL! yes, i'm easily amused!) and ready, and have chicken stock at the side, ready to add. picked out and fried the pieces of chourico first, remembering to add about 2 tablespoons of oil, then dumped in the leftovers, stirred it around for a while, then put the egg in and *BLISS* everything slid around the wok beautifully, nothing got burnt and i finally got my fried rice dinner, albeit a day late.

that bit at the bottom is not chao-da-ness lah! it's chili oil! fabulous stuff! :)

my tastebuds are getting quite confused. one minute it's the same food for three days straight, the next it's OMGTODIEFOR cushy meals at The Kitchen at Grand Lisboa. These expensive dinners are seriously getting me FAT.

i wanted to take a photo of the mashed potatoes but i was too paiseh. hell, i wanted to take a photo with the mashed. i wanted to MARRY it. it was. i don't know the word for it. the best damn mashed potatoes i ever had in my LIFE. and i only had two tablespoonfuls. it was like eating something that was made of half mashed, half butter. SO creamy, SO smooth, SO...sigh~.......

i miss it.

anyway! lunch post will be done tomorrow i am too lazy now. bye!

first of many.

western fried rice. MOP$18. actually not bad la...i'm tapao-ing half for dinner cause i've had 2 stressful days. sighs. want someone to massage me...:)

three.

she called me ah ma and i called her ah lien. just because she would wear jeans like this.

it's very very weird. very very very weird not having you around. cause you were quite loud. and panicky at times. guess i got that from you. i need you so much in my life now. is this part of growing up? feels just like yesterday we were in Singapore, we were lying on the bed, early in the morning and you were stroking my hair. that is my best and most precious memory of you. 


i miss you. every every day i miss you. 

Last Minute-ly

so, as per usual, i waited an hour til before dinner to decide what to do with my first quarter of Angus Beef that i bought at Royal the other day. i'd already decided on the spaghetti, and maybe some sort of salad. was searching for a black peppercorn sauce thing online and looking at the ingredients required (oyster sauce?none!cream?none!) when the Old Man called!

"what are you having for dinner?"

"i dunno i bought some steak the other day...so cheap!" (enthusiastically telling him it was US nicely marbled beef)

he then proceeded to tell me how to cook steak, as if i hadn't done it at least 20 times already. i was mmm-ing all the way then he asked what i was eating it with. i told him about my idea, then he suggested frying onions also, with the browning from the steak.

OMG Genius! too bad i don't have blue cheese to re-enact PW's droolsome recipe.

damn. i hope she doesn't see the link..and my cooking. so malu. cincai la, i want to promote her anyway. 

this was my initial ingredients to use. i'm always like this one. halfway will pull out something else. i'd already decided on salad: sliced shallots, salted to take off the tang, with tomatoes and cucumbers; buttered-garlic-chili spaghetti and of course the steak. i saw the mushrooms as i was taking out the butter! so i decided to make my favourite - garlicky mushrooms, sans herbs this time cos stingy/kiamsiap don't have any. 

i've made all of these things before ok. many times. simple shit. :D

Rolling boil (read: lots and LOTS of bubbles), almost a tablespoon of salt and some oil. i need to get olive oil! and stop being stingy. :P 

after that i was supposed to go cut the onion and stuff but i got lazy and went to play Facebook. heh. 

then i salted, peppered and oiled both sides of the steak. ya i know, so much marble already, i only put a biiiitt of oil ok. i love coarse black pepper! just the look of it...classy classy heh. should have brought some back from home :( Sarawak Black Pepper is the best!

yes i do admit, the steak is a bitbit grey but hey, it's cheap!

started dicing up garlic and chili and went thru the whole freaking-out-over-seeds again. i was on Skype with Diehard the whole time, he made deseeding sound so easy, but now my fingers are slightly tingly again. sigh. anyway, sliced up shallots bowl is for salad, with some salt, and more for the steak sauce :)~

i arranged it all neatly for display only! but really it does make for easier cooking and no need to wash so many bowls after :D the mushrooms were so nice and spongy, i had 2 slices raw...yumm..i think they're the chinese type mushroom? not too sure, i couldn't read the packaging :P about 14 for RM4..cheap/expensive?

i was cutting everything really slowly ok. i'm still getting back into cooking. so by the time i was done, i figured the onions must have been salted enough. added the tomatoes and cucumbers, salt and pepper. actually some lemon juice and olive oil should go in this, but no olive oil and i only had that lemonade thingy, so i put that in. lucky it had a bit of sugar, which i wanted anyway! after mixing, i put it in the freezer to chill.

started on the spaghetti first. i'd boiled it for about 6 minutes already (yes i know that sounds too long but i like mine mushy, got a problem?) so i just needed to fry the garlic and chili. got the butter and oil foaming just a little on medium-low heat (?)...

then dumped in the garlic and chili. note to self: too much chili! should have stopped at one and put more garlic instead. i'm lousy at agar-ration, always have been. 

now the garlic is turning a nice nutty brown (not chao da yet!!)

we both agreed Diehard's mother would scream at the amount of butter i was using :D

then i put in the spaghetti. see! too much spaghetti, not enough garlic, dang it! was trying to mix it to coat, but that's hard to do with a wooden ladle :P i wasn't trying to fry the spaghetti, just long enough to warm it up again, maybe 45 seconds or less. 

finally scraped off at least a bit more so it would look close to what i had in mind. heh. ok, spaghetti done!

*rubs hands in glee* mushrooms next! same concept, foaming butter and oil on med-low(?) heat, added chunky garlic, fried til nutty (?) :D

here go the mushrooms! they needed a lot of oil ler..i had to add a bit more halfway. but as long as you keep turning them, they're alright. 

yay! just nice, not too soft, about 3-4 mins on medium-low. or whatever. i don't know. i remember how the flame looks like. that's enough!

now, the steak! mmm...ok la see i didn't use so much butter this time, only a thiin slice. butter is good for you ok. makes you strong and healthy!

added some oil to butter, got the flame quite high and let it foam for a while, then dropped my steak in with a satisfying sizzle! 

ok lah i laid it down la. i don't want to get drops of hot oil all over my arms ok. i bet tons of food writers have used the phrase 'satisfying sizzle'. it's late. i'm in no mood to be original :P

1 min 20 secs on one side and 20 secs on the other, and done! look at the yummy juicy yumminess! hrm..maybe i should have cooked it a bit longer. :P oops

with the remaining butter/oil-brownbits thing..

i started frying the shallots with LOTS and LOTS of coarse black pepper in med-low (i guess) heat til they were pretty soft and pretty brown (like a doe? O.o)

..or your eyes...mmm...yes yes...:D

"your eyes are as brown as fried shallots.." sounds romantic enough to me! heh. 

now for the freaky part. i wasn't too sure how this was going to work. in the end i just put 1/4 teaspoon tapioca flour i found in a drawer, with about 3ml (?) of milk. 

and then! OMG! the magic happened! it thickened without getting too lumpy! YAY!!

ok la. it was a bit too thick. should have put in 2 tbsp more milk at least. but what the heck! i got me some sauce!

and there you have it! my dinner! yay to me! looks a bit extravagant but i've been living off the stew for 3 days ok, give me a break. ya i put too much chili in the spaghetti and the steak sauce was a bit too thick, but i pretty much did it! a nice dinner for myself.

and Diehard who was playing HoN. bleh. i'm used to it :D

kitchen was hell to clean after though. :P

LOST!

and i didn't take any photos cause i was sweaty and tired and exhausted and sad and thirsty and....
yes. i have a bad bad sense of direction. i need my GPS :(
i did have enough time to take a photo of this:

observe the corners of the roof....

Macau is the land of the devil! all those casinos...no wonder....

yeslah. at the time i took this photo i was damn annoyed with all the steep hills and freakin mountain thingy slap in the middle of the city that i had to go around just to get to the computer place. in the end i was so hopelessly lost and tired that i just hailed a cab and got ripped off. great day huh. 

enough complaining! it's a beautiful city really, great architecture :) ahem ahem. just need to do some more exploring. and bring a map. :P

never mind. i'll do better next time! yeah! positivity!

time for dinner~ i'm starving.