End of Spring Break...

This break has passed by so fast... It was pretty much just eat, play, sleep and badminton everyday. But the most enjoyable part was eating and cooking this break, badminton too... It's sure good to exercise.

This has been pretty much my hang out place for this break...



Notice the 2 photos at the side of the room? My seniors really like my photos, so I developed 8x10's for them to put up.

Here's what the guys here enjoy a lot...



A 32" LCD TV hooked up with a PS3 via HDMI video connection. Blue-Ray movies played on this pair is really awesome. When watching Spiderman 3, the details that you could see were absolutely unbelievable. Tobey Maguire isn't that best looking guy around, but after watching him in Blue-Ray, that statement holds beyond true. We also got a copy of Blue-Ray Pirates of The Caribbean 3, which didn't disappoint us either. Missing in this photo is another console. Just this morning, my senior bought a Nintendo Wii. Walmart didn't have stock for weeks until today. We only had the sports games that came with the set and it was sure fun. It's really cool how interactive the games are on the Wii. My fav are bowling and tennis. On Thursday night, I prepared bak kut teh. It was simple, just follow the instructions on the spice packet. The brand used was A1 from Malaysia.

Here's what we had...

Black mushrooms and golden mushrooms

On Friday afternoon...

It has been awhile since i cooked pasta so, on Friday I made pasta. It's my famous basil seafood pasta.

Till now I have never shared this recipe with anyone as the recipe had been handed down from my mom.

So, all I can do is show you how it looks like...

I also made garlic bread and baked cod fish with garlic butter and herbs.

I did use some of the juice that came from the baked fish into my pasta. That help make the pasta more flavorful. Another important ingredient was white wine. My senior had a bottle of white wine at home and he let me use it for the pasta. My friends loved the pasta very much. They believe it's one of the best pasta that they had ever tasted cause it was very different from the ones which is common in restaurants like alfredo, carbonara, bolognese and aglio olio. It feels good to cook a good meal for people who enjoys food just like me.

For dinner, we went over to another senior's house for homemade pan mee. It was good too. For dessert, my senior and I prepared this...

It was inspired by our most favorite dessert at Applebee's diner, the Triple Meltdown. It's just a moist chocolate cake drizzled with chocolate syrup served hot with vanilla ice cream. It's superb I tell you. Hot and cold at the same time... Mmmmm.... YUMMY!

We successfully recreated this dessert using Pillsbury's Moist Supreme cake mix.

and cheap Vanilla Ice cream. We also used Nestle Nesquik Chocolate Syrup to drizzle over it. Did I mention the mix we used was Dark Chocolate? It's my favorite chocolate. This cake mix was really moist and the instructions were simple. All we needed were the mix, eggs, water and oil.

To be continued...

Chinese Styled Pop Corn Chicken?

So, just a couple of hours ago me and my friends was thinking of what to eat for dinner. I really wanted to cook, so I tried to think of something I haven't tried cooking before. So, this dish inspired by one of my fav dish from my mom, Chinese Styled Chicken Chop. Here's a old photo of it when I had it back in Malaysia.

And here's my dish... Chinese Styled Pop Corn Chicken (well, they're actually just slices bite size chicken thigh)

A very simple dish to make...

Ingredients:

1. Chicken Thigh fillets
2. Soy sauce
3. Pepper
4. Egg
5. Flour

THAT'S IT!!

Preparation:

1. Slice chicken thigh fillet into bite size pieces.
2. Put them in a bowl marinate it with soy sauce and pepper. There are no proportion to it, but the pepper taste does have to be a lil strong cause it gives the meat a really good flavor.

As again, most of you all know I always cook without fixed amount ingredients. I
put in whatever amount I think is just right to achieve the taste that I want.

Tip: For this dish, you need to try and fry a piece of two to taste whether the meat is well marinated.

3. You do not need to marinate the meat for a few hours. It's ready to cook as long it has been well mixed.

4. Next, scramble the egg to make the coating for the chicken. I used multipurpose flour for the coat.

5. Take pieces of the meat, coat it with a thin layer of egg followed by a good coating of flour.

Tip: The reason I never mix the egg and flour into a batter because this method produces a crispier coating for the meat.

6. Fry the coated meat with medium high heat. And wait till it turns golden brown.

7. Put it on a plate with kitchen towels to absorb the excess oil from the meat.

Tip: Make sure the oil is well heated before frying, otherwise you will either get an overcooked meat which is not golden brown for a very long time or a uncooked meat which is close to being burnt very fast.

8. SERVE!

Extra: Serve it with Thai styled sweet chilli sauce.

It'll be good if you can serve it with slices of cucumber or salad greens like fresh lettuce/cabbage.

ENJOY!

"Taste as I taste"

Northern Lights aka Aurora Borealis in Houghton, MI!

On the same night we were celebrating Malaysia's new beginning... we were also lucky to have witnessed a very phenomenal event the Northern Lights. It's a really rare sighting in Houghton, MI. Noone has seen it in years. Maybe Malaysia having a better government (hopefully) made an impact to this phenomenon. (yeah, I know that's bull crap )

Here are the shots I got... Do click on them for LARGER size.

It was a very wonderful phenomenon, the pattern of the aurora changes every moment. And sometimes when it has an intense glow to it, i got goosebumps. It was a great feeling to witness such an occasion.

Most of the shots were taken from 2-3am and it was freezing cold that night. -20 Celsius. But i'd do anything for photography.

Hope all of you would be able to enjoy these shots and...

"see as I see"

Curry Noodles for Lunch! and Druncken Salted Chicken for Dinner! ~faints~

Once again, my senior Ee Lim didn't disappoint us. He made Curry Noodles for lunch on Sunday. He served it with pasta noodles. Everything was fine but the soup was a lil diluted.

Look at those big succulent prawns!

For dinner, I prepared drunken chicken. It had actually been prepared since Saturday night. The chicken has to be marinated overnight.

For this dish, I used chicken wings and drumsticks.

This is a very simple dish to prepare. First, massage the chicken with salt and let it sit in the fridge for 4 hours.

Next, just steam the chicken for about 15mins until the chicken is cooked just right.

To prepare the marination. All you need is the stock from the steam chicken and about 2 cups of chinese cooking wine, Shao Xing wine. The wine I used wasn't the sweet type, so I put about 2 teaspoons of sugar as well in addition to another 2 tbsp of salt (yeah I know, a lot of salt, but this dish is meant to be salty). Make sure most of the chicken is soaked in the marination and leave it soaked overnight in the fridge.

To serve the dish, heat up the chicken over the stove. Remove the chicken once it starts boiling. Serve the sauce separately. The sauce goes well over the chicken and on rice.

Being the first time making this dish, I'd say it was not bad. The only thing most of my friends agreed was if it had a lil more wine taste it'd been better. I think so too, it would have been even tastier if I had some XO/brandy. Also missing were slices of ginger for the marination and also spring onion/cilantro (chinese celery) when serving. We were out of all those.

Drunken Salted Chicken by Me

Other dishes of the night...

Mongolian Stir Fried Beef by Pou Chong and Me

and stir fried vegetable with sausages by Shu Wei


And again we finish off the night with movies and PS3.
(I am loving that 32" LCD with PS3!)

Enjoy!~

Updates... Break has just begun...

Spring break started on Friday. My friends and I were looking out for the election results. Thanks to Malaysiakini, we were well informed with short news updates. Almost all of us were in support of a new government which will make a change. And thankfully, the election results has spoken for itself, it was the beginning of something new... "time to change".

Which is why... we feasted on Saturday night.(we were also celebrating the beginning of the break )


LOOK!

First up... Smelt Fish deep fried with batter by Pete Vang


It was served with... A special sauce mainly made from chili, cilantro and fish sauce.


Next dish... Pork cooked in beer sauce by Shu Wei


The main dish... Korean Bimbimbab by Ee Lim

The simple ingredients used to make this tasty meal were...

Rice

Shredded cucumber



Bean Sprouts (big)



Minced Beef


and finally, Korean bimbimbab sauce.

To serve this meal, just grab some rice, shredded cucumber, bean sprouts, minced beef, bimbimbap sauce and a lil sesame oil. Mix them all together, you have a great tasting Korean meal. The bimbimbap sauce is a kind of sweet sauce that tastes like something similar to a dish known as "achar" It's a lil spicy too.

To top it all off...
We had Peanut and lotus soup by ME

We stayed up all night playing PS3 and watching movies.

Cheers!

My first winning photograph!

Sorry for the lack of updates, there hasn't been much happenings with me besides exams last week and hanging out with my usual friends on weekends. Exams went well, and routinely, on Fridays, I will go for badminton in the evening, then go over to a senior's place to cook dinner and then watch a movie during dinner followed by PS3 + 32" LCD TV.

On other news...

Finally, one of my photographs had been chosen as first prize at my uni's Memorial Union Tech Arts Festival 2008. It was chosen out of over 75 photos. The judge was the university's photographer. I submited two photographs for the color photography category.

This one - Yellow Cab in Chicago


and this... City of Chicago at Night...(cont.)



....was the winning shot...

I am getting US$80 for this shot. I am pretty proud and happy as this is my first "paid" photography. Hope I'll be able to enter and win more contests with my photos.

Anyone looking for a photographer for portraits? I'd like to venture into that field of photography. As most of you have seen, most of my photos are landscapes and abstract objects.

Do check out my selected photos @ flickr
Cheers!