there’s definitely something hissing in the ceiling. No, REALLY.
It’s making hsst…stt.ssst… noises. The occasional clawing about can be heard too. Sometimes live things fall through the hole in the hall closet and we have to make routes to get it out of the building. I think it’s a raccoon. Anybody want to place bets?
Twice a week, sort of thing. About a bunch of musicians on the road who are also computer geeks with laptops.
I’m currently hooked on Real Life.
Sorry for the lack of recipes, people. Although I’m sure there’s enough here to keep you busy in the kitchen, my nose had prevented me (lately) to create any new ones. I can’t smell anything. My allergy meds haven’t been working well either, and I don’t really want to take doubles…
So I’ve been making crazy stuff like western style Chinese preserved meats rice (without any chinese preserved meats. I just used Oktoberfest sausages. Sue me.), and Stu somehow gobbles it up like it was gourmet. Honestly, if you have the stomach for this kind of stuff, you can make sausages into anything you need meat for. Just take the casing off, and bake/fry/braise. I won’t need to smell it because I know what the stuff taste like - then I just add ingredients like eggs, random veggies, steamed rice. Easy.
Because my boyfriend spoils me rotten. He has read me the entire Little Prince (bits at a time, of course) and short stories from Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors, among others, over the course of our relationship. We just started on Stardust, and now I can’t wait until I get to sleep. Then I keep myself awake as long as possible.
Well, it’s been a fast week at work, so I haven’t been cooking much. I’ve also been (believe or not) on a diet to get in shape for the summer. Not so much get in shape as just excercising to get more energy to handle my heavy summer schedule, but so far it’s been working well.
I got Stuart Star Wars: Republic Commando and Gary Grisby’s World at War. Looks like he won’t be getting any sleep for a while. WaW is actually pretty damn interesting - it reminds me of those old Chinese games like Ghangis Khan and Three Kingdoms - grand strategy. Risk on crack. I think I might actually end up playing it more than he does.
Isn’t he cute? Stu got me one of these from work yesterday. It reminds me of the sheep from Wallace & Gromit. Remember "The Close Shave"? It’s almost the exact same sheep. I think I’m going to name it.
The legs are bendable and he’s all plushy and soft. MINE.
I went on a quest to find some healthy food for lunch today. Healthy. Think not-Chinese-resturant, not slathered in grease, not tossed in salt, and not a bloody bagel. Being where I am (middle of bloody nowhere that is called Etobicoke), that is a very difficult thing to do. Here are the choices for food:
Lucky Restaurant - Westernized Chinese food. Greasy.
The Great Canadian Bagel - Dirty.
Tim Hortons - $6.99 for a sandwich? You kidding me?
Wendy’s - I don’t eat fast food.
Candiana Restaurant - If it wasn’t frequented by a bunch of scary looking people, I might go in there someday.
I decided to instead hit the frozen grocery store. M&M’s. I figured they might actually have something that won’t 1) shoot my cholesterol level right up 2) give me a sugar high 3) take up the rest of my daily sodium intake. The problem, however, is that a grocery store to a cook is akin to a candy store to a child. I ended up buying a box of steaks, a box of chicken breasts, a box of oktoberfest sausages, 4 scottish meatpies, and 4 boxes of tandoori chicken entrees.
The entress, however, were very yummy. So yummy they made me sad. Sheesh, if a machine can cook this well, and make my lunch in 5 minutes for $2.99, what’s the point of spending 2 hours whipping up a nice tandoori sauce? I couldn’t even tell that it was pre-frozen. It had no hint of "pre-frozen" whatsoever. Usually after a frozen entree, I think, I can probably do better than this in 5 minutes or less, but this time around I wanted another one.
This calls for a good tandoori recipe. I WILL make tandoori better than a machine, dammit.
This is a low fat version of fried chicken. 
Who am I kidding? This is just a easier version of fried chicken, and you get the side dishes along with the main course. I try to make a lot of throw-it-in-the-oven-set-a-timer-forget-it recipes. It gives me reading time.
For this recipe, you will need a large roasting pan and a frying pan. I’m partial to the chicken thigh because it gives the MOST flavour out of any other parts of chicken, and you can always trim the big pieces of fat off if you’re concerned about the fat content. You can always substitute with breasts, but I can’t promise that it will taste as good.
You’ll also notice that I cook in large quantities. Why? You can always freeze leftovers and microwave them much later. It takes just as much time to cook a meal for 2 as it does a meal for 8, and if you can make 4 meals for 2 in the same amount of time, why not? It’s also cheaper to buy family packs.
Ingredients - serves 8
8 Chicken thighs
1 Cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 TBSP water
1 Cup Italian style breadcrumbs (I used PC)
1 bunch (about 
carrots, cut into halves (lengthwise, making some very thin carrots)
1 whole onion, coarsely chopped
3 cups chopped button mushrooms
1 TBSP salt
1 TBSP fresh ground pepper
1 cup of light oil (grapeseed)
4 TBSP garlic butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400, along with the roasting pan. Use 3 bowls, a rack, and lay out the dipping ingredients:
1st bowl: flour, sprinkled with salt and some pepper (use a dash of each)
Wire rack. Use dried papertowels if you don’t have one.
2nd bowl: 2 eggs whipped with the spoon of water.
3rd bowl: breadcrumbs.
Coat chicken with flour, then lay on wirerack. You want to do all 8,
let it sit for a few minutes, then do the eggwash and breadcrumb
coating - it helps the flour stick. Preheat pan to medium, and start heating up some oil. Use a piece of onion to check if it’s hot enough; if it sizzles, it’s hot enough. Lightly fry chicken, 3 minutes per side, making sure the sides are fried as well, to make a nice crispy coating. Don’t crowd the pan and don’t overcook. Leave on a wire rack with some papertowels to soak up excess oil.
Take the roasting pan out of the oven, and cover the bottom with garlic butter. Lay on the onions and mushrooms, add the salt and pepper, then make a lettice rack with the carrots on top. No, you don’t have to weave them. On top of that, evenly lay the chicken. Sprinkle remaining breadcrumbs through the cracks. Now throw that all in the oven and roast, open, for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, check to see if juices are running clear from the chicken by poking a small skewer in it. If it’s pinkish, throw it back in for another 15. Then check again.
Once it’s done, turn off the heat, and let it sit for at least 10 minutes so that juices can settle. I served this with mashed potatoes, but you can serve the veggies over rice with the crusty (breakcrumbs!) pan sauce. I made this last night and the guinea pig (*cough* boyfriend) loved it.
The kids loved this. The key is not adding too much sugar when you’re cooking it, so that people can add as much icing sugar as they want later. I made these in mugs because it made it easier to serve around the couch, but you could make this a elaborate dessert with moulded cups. Just remember to oil the moulds a little with light oil (grapeseed) before you pour pudding in to make sure nothing STICKS.
Ingredients
3/4 cup of tapioca rice
5 cups of water
1 can of coconut milk
1 TSP ground cinnimon
1 TSP nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
Instructions
Bring water to a boil, and cook tapioca (boil then simmer) until completely cooked. You can tell by their transparency - you need to cook them until the white dot in the middle disappears. Combine sugar and spices in a bowl, then add to the pot. Sugar helps to break up the spices so you don’t get any lumps, but even if you do, it’s ok. Don’t panic. It still tastes good. After the sugar mixture dissolves, add the coconut milk. Reduce the mixture by simmering until it is thick enough to coat a spoon.
Scoop into individual mugs, cool, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Top with a spoonful of icing sugar and serve. It has a mild flavour, and doesn’t scream sugar like most desserts. The inspiration is from the Chinese Sai Mich Lo, a tapioca coconut cold soup.
This takes HOURS. The result is extremely tasty, however, and well worth the trouble. Serves a whole lot of people - I lost track because one of the kids who was over had 5 servings on his own. Make this in the biggest pot you own. I used a 12 L pot, and it was almost not enough.
Ingredients
3 Chicken Legs, fat trimmed and skin removed
1 Box of Chicken broth
1 TBSP salt
5 Cups chopped leeks
1 1/2 cups of fragrant rice
3/4 pot of water - add as necessary.
Instructions
Bring the water to a boil, add chicken and salt. Turn the heat down to medium, close the lid, and let it boil for 30 minutes. You’re trying to make a nice base for everything else. Set the chicken aside. Add rice to the pot, stir, bring to a boil again, then simmer until rice is cooked. Add the rest of the ingredients (strip the chicken and throw that in as well) and simmer until you can’t distinguish individul pieces of rice in the soup. Add water as you go along to thin it out, stirring often.
You should end up with a creamy texture and a soup that holds the heat in. Stu calls it "atomic chicken soup" because it’ll burn your tongue even if you’ve already left it on the counter to cool for 15 minutes. I like to garnish it with chopped green onions.
This is actually my version of the Chinese congee, which is a traditional breakfast food in China, served with fried breadsticks. It is easy on the stomach; it’s practically pre-digested, with all that boiling. It warms you up on a cold winter day, and wakes you up on a warm day with some lettice and peanuts.
