Practiced dyeing marzipan today. Also learned how to bake a pumpkin pie.
Archive for the ‘Cooking’ Category
Shrimp Linguine
Ingredients:
3/4 box linguine
1/2 lb. large or jumbo shrimp, peeled
1/2 lb. asparagus sprigs
1 red bell pepper, cut into chunks
1 zucchini squash, sliced
1 summer (yellow) squash, sliced
1 ripe tomato or 2 roma tomatoes
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 lemon
4-5 cloves garlic, sliced
1 oz. butter
olive oil
1/2-1 c. white wine or white cooking wine
freshly ground black pepper
fresh basil
salt to taste
parmesan cheese to taste
Preparation
1. Melt butter in frying pan, add olive oil. Saute’e garlic.
2. In separate pot, boil water and cook linguine al dente.
3. While water is heating, cook vegetables (all but cherry tomatoes and asparagus) in the pan, along with wine, until mostly soft. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Add asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and asparagus. Cook until ready.
5. Garnish with basil and squeeze in lemon juice as desired.
Serves 3-4
Heavenly Cauliflower
Ingredients:
Cauliflower
Garlic (3-4 cloves)
Cherry/Grape Tomatoes
Shrimp (opt.)
Pine nuts (opt.)
Fresh Basil
Olive Oil
Butter (~1/2 oz.)
White Wine
Balsamic Vinegar (opt.)
Kalamata Olives (opt.)
Preparation
1. Cut cauliflower into reasonably sized florets, slice garlic, cut tomatoes in half
2. Melt butter in pan and saute’e the garlic lightly
3. Add olive oil, wine, vinegar, and cauliflower; cook until cauliflower is halfway done
4. Add in shrimp and tomatoes, cook until shrimp is ready. Shrimp can then be used in another dish or left in.
5. Add olives and remove from heat
6. Garnish with basil and serve chilled
Thanks to Chensi for helping to invent these recipes!
I’ve been trying to get back into the kitchen more lately. I’ve been relatively conservative, staying with my “tried-and-true” recipes while trying to increase the presentation and consistency.
Cajun wild sockeye salmon with broccoli
Carrot cake with marzipan decoration
I love baking carrot cakes, so to celebrate the end of finals and everything, I’ve drawn a CG of a girl presenting a carrot cake to you! It even has a cyclops bunny on it :).
My clothes-coloring technique is simply horrendous, and it also takes me forever to do clothes compared to hair, eyes, and skin. It’s just not clear to me how an apron is supposed to wrinkle – honestly in real life they barely wrinkle at all ’cause they’re so stiff, but the expectation in this coloring style is that they would, kind of like a dress I guess. I think aprons look cuter with jeans than with a skirt or dress, though, like with Sanae-san in Clannad haha. I guess she’s kind of a reference for this character type? Except the blue-haired girl here is more confident and independent – she’s letting you see the cake, but she’s going to be the one to eat it (and it is delicious, unlike Sanae-san’s baking)!
I also totally apologize that the cake pan is TOTALLY off-balance with reference to her oven mitt. Geez, it would slip!
This is probably the last time I’m going to use the Gimp for CG’ing. I have Photoshop on my laptop now, and the brushes in Photoshop are a LOT easier to deal with. Gimp brushes just have an unpolished feel to them. At the very least, all my lineart will be done in Photoshop. I may also try to acquire Illustrator so that I can dabble in using vectors for my lineart.
Bigger version here.
P.S. There is no way to read the white specks on the headband, but it is scrawled in English. The text reads, “Love is eternal, but humankind is not. So don’t cry [when I die].” Romantic? Pessimistic? I guess you can decide.
… at this point, after seven test meals, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m eating better here than even at home. Quality-wise, it’s about the same, but the sheer variety is amazing. Even amongst Chinese foods, you see, family preferences sometimes preclude you trying out the whole spectrum. I never really had eggplant before at home. And now I’ve also had avocado .. plus there are plans for artichoke! You have people coming in with expertise in soup, or in vegetables, or in pasta, or in Korean vs. Chinese vs. Taiwanese vs. Japanese vs. Italian food (and soon to be Indian food, too!), or in fish. Some people love the stove, some love the oven, some love the microwave, some leave it raw.
Another interesting thing is considering dietary restrictions and preferences: we have an even split between those who prefer low-salt and high-salt foods, and we have a Seventh-Day Adventist and a vegetarian to take care of, too; and one person dislikes onion and carrot. So this means learning to be creative with recipes, and also making differently-flavored ones for different people, further forcing us to be flexible cooks.
This past week’s food; * = I cooked it; each separate dish has a separate number – we try to go for 3-4 dishes per day:
Sunday: (1) Tomato and scrambled eggs, (2) Si gua “soup”, (3) Sparerib soup with fishball, (4) Ginger tilapia
Monday: (1) Korean soba (Nang myun) – cold buckwheat noodles, fresh avocado, dried seaweed, pine-nut kimchi, hard-boiled egg with sesame oil + sesame seeds. (2) Kimchi pancakes!
Tuesday: (1) Green beans with garlic*, (2) bamboo shoot chicken with spiced dougan, (3) chicken curry, (4) ginger cod
Wednesday: (1) Honey pan-fried chicken, (2) steamed broccoli, (3) pan fried-steamed cabbage (really awesome combo technique)
Thursday: chicken dumplings with napa cabbage (also, tofu + chive vegetarian option)
Friday: (1) shrimp pasta or mushroom pasta, (2) Chinese soy sauce-sesame oil-pepper fresh pickles*, (3) pineapple teriyaki salmon*, (4) eggplant in spicy garlic chili sauce
Sunday: (1) beef and broccoli (oyster sauce)*, (2) chicken & cabbage fried rice, (3) corn egg-drop soup
It’s always fun finding common ground with friends where you never thought you’d find any. I announced how I would say, “Ouch!” for objects I drop or hit that, if sentient, would indeed be hurt by the impact. But little did I expect a newfound friend to agree, telling me how, when she crashes into a table, she pets it to make sure it’s okay. It was so cute! And plus, three other completely dry people at MIT? Woow .. it was really shocking to me (in a pleasing way) … people here drink wayyyy too much .. such a turn-off sometimes ^^;;. Speaking of drinking, I told another friend that I was spending most of the summer cooking, but she misheard it as drinking, and yet admitted that, in light of it being me, she took that to imply that I was drinking lots of water. =) Nice to know what I’m internally consistent on *something*.
I really love cooking … . So today, I brought the raw salmon and a bag of ingredients with me in the morning, parking the salmon in the lab lounge fridge and the ingredients in the BMES lounge. After lunch, I skipped down to marinate the salmon (was aiming for a 4~5 hour incubation marination period), but I had forgotten my detergent, so after slicing the salmon (to distribute it evenly into the high-salt and low-salt containers – gotta be sensitive to peoples’ tastes, ya know!), I carried the knife through the lab-filled hallway. Strangely, no one seemed to care (or notice) that I was wielding a big sharp knife with my hand covered in some strange glistening substance.
Afterwards, I bumped into my ATS little sis (wow, good job Jen and Kenny! You really paired us up well – we talk all the time now =) ) and she asked me why my shirt was wet around the belly. I answered, “So I was in the BMES lounge cutting [raw] salmon, and a piece of it got on my shirt.” She just sort of looked at me quizzically. It was rather amusing =P. I told her I was on my way to Pearl to get some materials for an art project (heehee, it’s for a very special person ;) ;) ). She advised me to go across the street to a run-down looking place simply labeled “Art Supply.”
Indeed! Not only was there such a store, but their products were considerably cheaper and varied in ways I didn’t expect. For instance, they had many racks of cheap hand-made paper (huge — like 3′ x 4′). They also had matte board of all colors, precut foam, etc. etc. I was really astounded, not expecting such a place in a crumbling basement of sorts. I bought a decent paintbrush on clearance for a buck. Highly recommended! The true artist, after all, is starving and therefore must be frugal =P. Half-kidding ~_^.
I think overall the banquet was rather successful. Zach and co. did a spectacular (and dangerous) job in decorations (the lantern’s didn’t fall on people, yay!), and I’m going to treasure this set of puzzles forever – I really love the wordsearch one that is full of multi-layered goodness (you have to find the cities in the listed countries, then read the remaining letters, then construct the graphical shape it instructs in order to figure out where and how the answer is hidden~~).
I’m sure the food was pretty good, but only in freshman year did I really eat my fill. Banquet as an exec member is really about living vicariously through the happiness of others; I found this out last year when I was ostensibly still quite hungry afterwards. Serving ~150 people is a stressful task when you have to make sure the sternos don’t overcook/burn the food, and you have to deal with unexpected things happening to the food. While we technically got to eat food first, it wasn’t a feast, and people like Steven took it upon themselves to not eat for the sake of the guests, which is really admirable. I think I did roughly the same last year, but I was really hungry this year (from not eating lunch .. I think a lot of us cooking volunteers simply forsake eating in favor of cooking …).
Cleaning up is always a riot, with people pushing chairs at light-speed, sometimes with other people unexpectedly sitting down onto the chairs for a free ride. There was this competition last year to see how many dining chairs one person could balance at once (6 was the grand winner). This year, there were just two-person races for table transportation~. But I can’t forget the people standing on a chair on a table on a table (yes, three layers) to reach the ceiling, using chopsticks to get off tape with two spotters holding the chair. And there’s always the endless trash to deal with (I think we brought out our black bags at a good time this year; last year we let the trash cans pile up like crazy, and that was the terriblest thing to clean up after) – actually, this year, people for the most part just didn’t throw away their own trash -_-;;.
As always, the performances were splendid. I think for next year, we definitely should try to get someone new, though. Not that we need to replace anyone necessarily, but we at least need some new gigs even if the people are the same.
I got to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen for quite some time. It was fun but I mostly only got to see them for the five seconds they passed by my food. Given that we had 140 people last year, and more like 180 this year, we may have to start seriously considering our arrangements; this year, volunteers and exec basically were told, “Sorry, we don’t have any seats for you – please move your stuff into Dining.” I personally don’t care, but I know that some people would probably have been happier being able to participate more in the banquet atmosphere itself. I tried to make sure my girlfriend, who had cooked with me, could still enjoy some of it (in a seat), although it would’ve been nice to have someone to switch off with in serving the food. Well, at least I was able to join her (on the floor) before the performances started. She finally gave in and let Christine (not one of the two exec Christines ^^;;) take a picture of us, but I have yet to see it in its full glory … I’m really not photogenic at all, and I think the best pose for me is facing away from the camera and doing something else =P. Or hugging or something, ahaha. Still, I’m grateful that I can have a photo as a memory of the times.
Someone said something to me during the banquet that was really an unexpected response to what I had said as really an offhand, largely innocuous statement. And it’s really been pestering me ever since because it touched on something that seems to be deep in me. If I’m in a less-than-splendid mood, it’s because I can’t stop pondering what this person said. I might have to follow up on this to settle my worries.
* * *
Cooking was a lot of fun, and it took a lot less time than I had originally projected. It was fun working in the kitchen with my girlfriend – that’s probably what saved so much time – and I think the result was pretty good. Still, I need to practice cooking a lot more to cut down on variability … . I really should cook more often, but that would require me to push dinner to a much later hour. Perhaps that’s okay, though – it’s a thought, in any case.
* * *
I told my mom I don’t really need hong bao’s anymore .. I’m not really a kid who needs to be spoiled like that anymore =P. My mom said she liked doing it, though, so I suppose it wouldn’t her to let her give them. I still sleep with the envelopes under the pillow, only looking at the contents the next day. I think that little gesture, when taught to children (and enforced), is really a good lesson.
I really miss cooking, and I think that IAP, what with its 9-5 schedule and distinct lack of homework, might be the ideal opportunity to make up for lost time with my dear kitchen. Here’s a tentative and short list of a few of the things I want to try:
1. There was this great cauliflower-tomato-potato dish I had at an Indian restaurant, and I want to try making something similar. The sauce was somewhat soupy and may have contained stuff like red curry (not Thai red curry .. Indian red curry) and yogurt, although I’m not 100% sure.
2. I want to make lasagna from scratch! I want to go for the more white-sauce type rather than the red-sauce type. I might try adding things such as Chinese celery, spinach, carrots, shreds of baby corn – along with the requisite ground beef and ricotta cheese, of course. I think Alfredo sauce with some wine mixed in (but cooked of course) would be a nice thing to drape on top. Yes, I know this sounds very odd. ^^
3. Cucumber soup: my parents make this great soup with large rings of cucumber (full diameter, about 1 1/2″ tall) stuffed with ground pork + veggies made into a sort of meatball.
4. On a similar note, luobuo + sparerib soup. I’ve always had a close affinity for luobuo, maybe because of our shared names (sort of). But then again, why don’t I have as close an affinity for pineapple (buoluo)? Probably because pineapple is so incisive to the palate.
5. And on another similar note, boiled chicken soup with those dried orange-red things (not sure what they are .. some sort of fruit?). Maybe with flat noodles in there .. we’ll see. Depends on how I feel ^^. This is the superior form of chicken noodle soup. So many good Chinese soups to make!
6. I’m gonna buy myself a big knife and a big meat tenderizing mallet! I want to make tonkatsu (Japanese fried pork patties) …….. at least the layer of oil doesn’t have to be quite as deep as, say, for tempura.
7. I’m sure I’ll be making this with ATS, but … tsongyoubing are like my favoritest unhealthy snack ever! But no one here makes them quite right! They should be really really really thin and light and flaky .. how come they’re all so thick here? It puzzles me.
8. I have GOT to make some salmon fried rice redux .. maybe pineapple salmon fried rice redux! Pineapple salmon is soooo good. Or I could make salmon fillets with pico de gallo-based sauce .. and pineapple. Pineapple is key. So maybe I do have an affinity for pineapple after all!
Of course anyone who wants to join me in cooking and/or as a taste tester is more than welcome to do so! Yes, no penalty for eating only :-P. It’s my pleasure to cook. But of course, this is all experimental, so no guarantees on leaving with a happy stomach, haha.
Today, I experimented with making Thai green curry chicken. Green curry is essentially normal curry (cumin, etc.) supplemented with ~40% powdered green chili. It’s very strong, especially if you use a whole can (as I did), instead of 3 tbsp. Indeed, it was impossible to consume it without large amounts of rice, aloe vera drink, and Ponsuke’s flour snack.
I modified a recipe I found online to suit my tastes (ie, added more veggies). I ended up mixing chicken breast (~3/4 lb.) with mongo-carrot (~1/3 lb.), green pepper (~1/3 lb.), and half a pound of bamboo tips (not the thinly sliced ones – I mean the ones that still look like bamboo. I cut them into 1~2″ chunks). The sauce was basically 1 can green curry + 16 oz. coconut milk (*note* NOT ENOUGH), plus lemongrass, Chinese basil, and a sprinkling of sugar, soy sauce, and hot oil.
The result was ridiculously spicy (but not quite as spicy as the Thai curry I had in an authentic restaurant before). But it was pretty decently good. Surprisingly, the coconut milk lost its strength during the long cooking process, which would probably explain why 2 1/2 cups (20 oz.) was recommended for approx. 3 tbsp of curry. I’ll definitely make a point of getting sufficient sauce next time.
I have one more can of green curry, plus one can of red curry. There are many more types of curry out there, and I plan to learn how to use each one by the end of this year.
One cool thing about curry is that it seems to resist growing mold in the refrigerator …