This Post is About Food
I was going to post some overdue scans first, but I got dragged out to karaoke by my mom's friend (yea, it's a bit weird...) because she had a friend over from Europe and TO is such a boring place that she wanted to go to karaoke and I was necessary because they including my mom don't know much about karaoke systems and places and all. I just got back not too long ago and nope, I won't get scans up before it turns midnight, so those will come later.
Have some food photos instead.
Like I mentioned before, my dad is off to HK for about a month and a bit and during that time, on weekdays, I'm in charge of cooking dinner because my mom tends to do overtime at work a lot, so if I can make sure my sister and I don't starve before she comes back, it'd be very helpful.
So if you're hungry, don't look at this post. Not that the food I cook is like oh-my-gosh-what-a-feast, but food is food. It may make you feel hungry, lol.
Including two lunches I made recently as well for myself, not just dinner.
Using Tinypic, just in case there are people on my f-list that are in countries where Imageshack is blocked.
Starting with a lunch!
Those who remember about it, I mentioned about eating canned tuna for lunch, and this is it! It is basically canned tuna, oil drained, mixed with miso, mirin, red chili oil, and sugar on top of a bed of lettuce, which is on top of rice. The egg was supposed to be an onsen tamago (egg slow-boiled so that the yolk is hard but the white is still soft (traditionally cooked in a hot spring)), but I failed and...I'm not sure what that egg is supposed to be now, haha.
This was made before my dad left. My mom randomly decided she was too tired to cook dinner so asked me if I wanted to cook instead, and I ended up making something like the topping for an oyakodon, but with more liquid (failure on my part, but still tasted good) and cooked half a cabbage as well.
Another lunch I made! The two onigiri are grilled with miso on top while the rolled egg or tamagoyaki is the sweet type. While making the egg rolled like that sounds complicated, it's actually pretty easy to make even without the special tamagoyaki pan! Even if you mess up, because you roll the layers of egg together, as long as the last layer look good, no one will really know you messed up in the middle, lol.
This was also before my dad left, lol. This is something like okonomiyaki, but not exactly. I made the pancake like thing with miso on top, which explains the dark, burnt-ish parts because miso is very easy to burn, so you have to cook things with miso on top with less heat. My dad helped me cut the cabbage...and they turned out a lot bigger than I thought they would be. >>'' My regular cut does not equal his regular cut, which would explain the fail shapes too...? XDD;; I'm going to try to make proper okonomiyaki another time. Not to mention I can't actually have okonomiyaki with actual sauce and mayo on top because my sister and mom don't like mayo while my mom doesn't like sauce. XDD; I'd have to have to separate dishes for the okonomiyaki. Not that I have Japanese mayo in the house...
Now we're finally getting to dinner that I cook after my dad left! This is pretty simple. It's basically beef and tomato plus a bit of onion marinated in olive oil, with salf and pepper and dried herb (oregano...maybe? I can't remember) for about 30 minutes, then cooked. It's pretty simple to make and taste quite nice as well~ My mom complimented me for this dish.
The vegetables - zucchini - that we ate with the meat above. I cooked it with butter and lemon juice. I personally like lemons, have no problem with sour stuff, so this worked out well for me, but for my sister, it took her a few bites to get used to the flavour, while my mom thought it was a bit too sour, so if I make this again, I would have to go easier on the lemon juice.
Another dinner. This time, chicken breast cooked with mushrooms. The sauce...this might sound a bit weird, but actually tastes good - fresh cream and oyster sauce. Yes. Western mixed with Asian. It actually works out though. My mom was totally surprised when I told her what was in the sauce, but she agreed that it actually tastes good as well. For one large-ish chicken breast with 3 big white mushrooms, I used roughly 4 tablespoons of cream with 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce. A bit easy on the oyster sauce though, otherwise it'll be too salty. You can add other vegetables to it as well, such as different type of mushrooms and asparagus and all. Also cooked eggplants for a vegetable main side dish. Just eggplants grilled in pan with butter. No photo of that.
This is salmon cooked with a miso sauce on a bed of cabbage. You just steam everything in one pan. Very easy! For the miso sauce, it's basically miso, mirin, sugar, water and cooking wine if you have any. I didn't so I added more mirin and water and lessened the amount of sugar, since mirin is basically sweet cooking sake. It's actually supposed to be thicker, the sauce, and that you would actually see it, but the miso I had was a bit on the salty side, so I added a bit more water to the sauce which made it more liquid, so the both salmon and cabbage soaked up all the sauce. When you serve it, just add butter on top of the salmon for additional flavouring. Instead of just cabbage, you can add other vegetables such as carrots, onions, mushrooms, etc. Just make sure they're sliced thin enough so the salmon and vegetables will all be finished cooking around the same time.
Last is this! Basically, it's soboro which is minced meat or fish with soy sauce, etc and often served on rice, like in bentou and stuff. In my case, it's minced pork (usually, the meat would be minced a lot finer in soboro, but I didn't really care) and I added a bit of tomato in it. Instead of just soy sauce, I also added a bit of miso, mirin, etc. This was the day I had to prepare dinner early for my sister before I went out for karaoke so she could heat up food if she's hungry before our mom came back. Hence, along with the soboro, I prepared her some raw lettuce, meaning she wrapped the soboro with a bit of rice using a piece of lettuce and ate like that. Simple!
On Friday, I also cooked, but did not take a photo of the food because I didn't do much work. It was something similar to yakiramen or yakisoba, and the noodles came with powdered sauce already, so I just added some cabbage, sausage and corn to the noodles. Nothing too special. We always go out to play badminton on Fridays, so having something quick and easy is always convenient because otherwise, we'd be eating take-out, lol.
I'll be cooking until the end of May, so hopefully every weekend, I'll make a post that's something like this.
I tend to be really rough with my cooking, so I prefer not to write out proper recipes in my post, though yes, I have my little recipe book that I fill up for future reference, so um, if you're interested in cooking any of the above dishes for whatever reason XD; feel free to ask for more details?
Now to figure out how to organize my next scans post...orz;; Too many issues...
Have some food photos instead.
Like I mentioned before, my dad is off to HK for about a month and a bit and during that time, on weekdays, I'm in charge of cooking dinner because my mom tends to do overtime at work a lot, so if I can make sure my sister and I don't starve before she comes back, it'd be very helpful.
So if you're hungry, don't look at this post. Not that the food I cook is like oh-my-gosh-what-a-feast, but food is food. It may make you feel hungry, lol.
Including two lunches I made recently as well for myself, not just dinner.
Using Tinypic, just in case there are people on my f-list that are in countries where Imageshack is blocked.
Starting with a lunch!
Those who remember about it, I mentioned about eating canned tuna for lunch, and this is it! It is basically canned tuna, oil drained, mixed with miso, mirin, red chili oil, and sugar on top of a bed of lettuce, which is on top of rice. The egg was supposed to be an onsen tamago (egg slow-boiled so that the yolk is hard but the white is still soft (traditionally cooked in a hot spring)), but I failed and...I'm not sure what that egg is supposed to be now, haha.
This was made before my dad left. My mom randomly decided she was too tired to cook dinner so asked me if I wanted to cook instead, and I ended up making something like the topping for an oyakodon, but with more liquid (failure on my part, but still tasted good) and cooked half a cabbage as well.
Another lunch I made! The two onigiri are grilled with miso on top while the rolled egg or tamagoyaki is the sweet type. While making the egg rolled like that sounds complicated, it's actually pretty easy to make even without the special tamagoyaki pan! Even if you mess up, because you roll the layers of egg together, as long as the last layer look good, no one will really know you messed up in the middle, lol.
This was also before my dad left, lol. This is something like okonomiyaki, but not exactly. I made the pancake like thing with miso on top, which explains the dark, burnt-ish parts because miso is very easy to burn, so you have to cook things with miso on top with less heat. My dad helped me cut the cabbage...and they turned out a lot bigger than I thought they would be. >>'' My regular cut does not equal his regular cut, which would explain the fail shapes too...? XDD;; I'm going to try to make proper okonomiyaki another time. Not to mention I can't actually have okonomiyaki with actual sauce and mayo on top because my sister and mom don't like mayo while my mom doesn't like sauce. XDD; I'd have to have to separate dishes for the okonomiyaki. Not that I have Japanese mayo in the house...
Now we're finally getting to dinner that I cook after my dad left! This is pretty simple. It's basically beef and tomato plus a bit of onion marinated in olive oil, with salf and pepper and dried herb (oregano...maybe? I can't remember) for about 30 minutes, then cooked. It's pretty simple to make and taste quite nice as well~ My mom complimented me for this dish.
The vegetables - zucchini - that we ate with the meat above. I cooked it with butter and lemon juice. I personally like lemons, have no problem with sour stuff, so this worked out well for me, but for my sister, it took her a few bites to get used to the flavour, while my mom thought it was a bit too sour, so if I make this again, I would have to go easier on the lemon juice.
Another dinner. This time, chicken breast cooked with mushrooms. The sauce...this might sound a bit weird, but actually tastes good - fresh cream and oyster sauce. Yes. Western mixed with Asian. It actually works out though. My mom was totally surprised when I told her what was in the sauce, but she agreed that it actually tastes good as well. For one large-ish chicken breast with 3 big white mushrooms, I used roughly 4 tablespoons of cream with 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce. A bit easy on the oyster sauce though, otherwise it'll be too salty. You can add other vegetables to it as well, such as different type of mushrooms and asparagus and all. Also cooked eggplants for a vegetable main side dish. Just eggplants grilled in pan with butter. No photo of that.
This is salmon cooked with a miso sauce on a bed of cabbage. You just steam everything in one pan. Very easy! For the miso sauce, it's basically miso, mirin, sugar, water and cooking wine if you have any. I didn't so I added more mirin and water and lessened the amount of sugar, since mirin is basically sweet cooking sake. It's actually supposed to be thicker, the sauce, and that you would actually see it, but the miso I had was a bit on the salty side, so I added a bit more water to the sauce which made it more liquid, so the both salmon and cabbage soaked up all the sauce. When you serve it, just add butter on top of the salmon for additional flavouring. Instead of just cabbage, you can add other vegetables such as carrots, onions, mushrooms, etc. Just make sure they're sliced thin enough so the salmon and vegetables will all be finished cooking around the same time.
Last is this! Basically, it's soboro which is minced meat or fish with soy sauce, etc and often served on rice, like in bentou and stuff. In my case, it's minced pork (usually, the meat would be minced a lot finer in soboro, but I didn't really care) and I added a bit of tomato in it. Instead of just soy sauce, I also added a bit of miso, mirin, etc. This was the day I had to prepare dinner early for my sister before I went out for karaoke so she could heat up food if she's hungry before our mom came back. Hence, along with the soboro, I prepared her some raw lettuce, meaning she wrapped the soboro with a bit of rice using a piece of lettuce and ate like that. Simple!
On Friday, I also cooked, but did not take a photo of the food because I didn't do much work. It was something similar to yakiramen or yakisoba, and the noodles came with powdered sauce already, so I just added some cabbage, sausage and corn to the noodles. Nothing too special. We always go out to play badminton on Fridays, so having something quick and easy is always convenient because otherwise, we'd be eating take-out, lol.
I'll be cooking until the end of May, so hopefully every weekend, I'll make a post that's something like this.
I tend to be really rough with my cooking, so I prefer not to write out proper recipes in my post, though yes, I have my little recipe book that I fill up for future reference, so um, if you're interested in cooking any of the above dishes for whatever reason XD; feel free to ask for more details?
Now to figure out how to organize my next scans post...orz;; Too many issues...