Saturday, February 7, 2009
I woke up today wondering what I should do for the day. For once, I didn't have to worry about getting school work done or scheduled any dinners for lunch dates with one of my friends. So, I was lounging on my couch watching one of my favorite channels on television, you guessed it Food Network. It was then that I felt a pang of hunger.
The weather outside was not the greatest today and I felt too lazy to call up someone to go grab some food with me at the dining hall or in one of the eateries downtown. The grumbling in my stomach only continued to grow increasingly louder as I sorted out my thoughts. With a sigh, I went towards my kitchen to look for something to eat.
Unfortunately my emergency stash of ramen and soup had long been depleted. A quick look at my cupboard and refrigerator left me with only a few items; a couple hot dogs, onions, eggs, and some frozen rice. Racking my brain for a brilliant idea to strike me, I remembered how my mother would make me fried rice with similar ingredients from time to time.
Armed with a spatula in hand, I set to work. After a small onion, I tossed a little oil into a large wok, and then added the onions Then I started boiling a bit of water in a medium sized pot to cook the hotdogs. After adding the rice to the onions, I cracked open an egg and added it to the rice. Last but not least, I cut up the hotdogs into bite sized pieces and sprinkled it on the rice. As a finishing touch, I added what I thought was an adequate amount of salt.
Excited at my first, true cooking adventure, I optimistically tried my first bite of the dish. Conclusion, the fried rice was very bland. The meal was edible, but it was in no ways tasty. The onions were slightly burnt and the rice was a bit on the hard side. Disappointed, I wondered why it did not turn out the way I wanted it to. I did everything that I remembered my mother doing, when she had made this dish. With my stomach at last full, I decided that the next dish I would make would be better planned. No use crying over spilt milk at this point. If I could make some fried rice without burning down the apartment, I figured that I was in better shape than I thought.
Sunday, February 15 2009
Today's the day after Valentine's Day and I planned on making dinner for my boyfriend. I would have done it on holiday itself, but Valentine's Day happened to be the day that we were helping my boyfriend move into his new place. By the end of that day, I was too tired to do anything. So, I figured it was better late than never.
In any case, this was the first time that I have ever seriously prepared dinner for somebody. To be completely frank, I was anxious at giving anyone my cooking. Sure, I never gave myself food poisoning, but I have quite the third world stomach. I am not sure, if anybody would be able to stomach my food.
Prior to the 15th, I made several preparations for the dinner. Besides searching the web for an easy, but delicious meal, I also had to go shopping for the proper ingredients. I'm sure all of you are curious on what dish I ended up deciding on and it was Cajun Chicken Pasta. It was a recipe that I randomly stumbled on when I was browsing through allrecipes.com and it looked simple enough. The reviews for the meal were also very promising.
The recipe was fairly straight-forward. It was much easier to make compared to the fried rice from my previous attempt, even though the amount of work that had to go into this one was greater. Since I had instructions to follow this time around, I tried to stick by it. I hoped that by doing so, I could reduce the risk of messing up the dish.
In the end, my hard work paid off. The result this time was very different from my last attempt, it was actually tasty. My boyfriend, who had only heard horror stories of my past experience, was very impressed. After I made the dish, we sat down and ate it while watching an episode of The Office. Overall, it was a very calm, but pleasant dinner.
On a critical note, the chicken was a little overcooked leading it to be a bit dry, but overall the dish was fantastic. The chicken was well-seasoned and the cream sauce complemented the meat well. The success had left me on a happier note. Perhaps, there was hope for me yet. We'll just have to hope that my next attempt is as equal as or better than this one.
Saturday March 28 2009
Hello guys! It's been a while since I've last written an entry. Spring break and exams really took a lot out of me. For some reason even after all my exams, I had so much work to do over the break that it hardly felt like one at all. Exhaustion and such didn't really motivate me to cook much over the last couple weeks. I made a few dishes here and there and they have turned out fairly well, but unfortunately I didn’t make an effort to document each one. Now that my workload has eased for a bit, I should be able to try out some more delicious dishes. As I’ve been progressing in my journey, I can already see myself improving.
Anyways, today I was forced to prepare a Korean dish called kalbi because I had recently lost a bet I had made with my boyfriend. We had heard a week prior that two acquaintances that we mutually know have changed their relationship status to state that they were in a relationship. Anyone who uses Facebook knows that things aren’t official until they’re on Facebook. So, I bet that they were just joking about the status, and he bet that they were actually going out. As I stated earlier, I lost the bet, which means they are going out. Well if anything, I’m happy for them.
Kalbi is simply marinated short ribs that are either grilled on an outdoor grill or in a frying pan, the former which tastes far better. Preparing the meat is definitely the hardest part of making this dish. Afterwards, you can eat it by either wrapping the meat in Korean lettuce or Romaine, along with garlic, rice, bean paste, and whatever else you feel like putting in there. Another way is to simply eat the kalbi with rice and other side dishes. There is really no one way to eat this food. It’ll be delicious anyway you prepare it.
If you don't have a rice cooker, you should start boiling the rice now on low heat so that you don't burn the pot or rice. Also, you can wash the vegetables and whatever else you wanted to eat with the kalbi now.
When it was finished, I realized that I put a little too much soy sauce in by accident and it turned out a bit salty, but overall it was fine. I hope this entry helped any other fellow cooks make a successful new dish.